AUTHENTIC CASTING
Transgender Hollywood seeks roles
When actress Scarlett Johansson reversed course recently and cancelled plans to play a transgender man in the film Rub & Tug, transgender actors including Scott Turner Schofield were gratified — and pleasantly surprised. After years of watching non-trans stars win accolades — including Oscars — for what was seen as bravery in playing transgender characters, finally it seemed that somebody got it.
“To have someone with any amount of power be reflective, and say, ‘I did something wrong, I learned something and I’m sorry’ — that absolutely feels like change,” says Schofield, a veteran trans performer who stars in the upcoming film The Conductor.
Now, Schofield and others hope Hollywood will understand an even bigger point — that the “authentic casting” debate the Johansson episode stoked isn’t just about who gets acting roles. The real goal, he says, is access for the transgender community at every level of the Hollywood storytelling process, from the first idea pitch to the final product.
“We need to take the reins here,” Schofield says. “We need to be a substantive part of this conversation.”
Advocates are hoping the current focus on transgender Hollywood will help.
“Hollywood right now is being very introspective about the stories it’s telling and how it’s telling them,” says Nick Adams, director of the transgender media program at GLAAD, the LGBT advocacy group. “We’re having a cultural moment where the trans community is speaking up and saying, ‘We want to be part of that.’ ”
To that end, G LA AD and the equality organization 50/50 BY 2020 has issued an “open letter to Hollywood,” signed by a large array of organizations and companies — from the American Civil Liberties Union to organizers of #TimesUp, from producers including Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, Ava DuVernay and Judd Apatow, to the major talent agencies.
“Trans people are fighting every day to be seen and accepted as human beings,” the letter says. “We believe we are at an unprecedented cultural moment, where we can ask Hollywood to use its power to improve the lives of trans people by changing America’s understanding about who trans people are.”
Not long ago, say Schofield and others, transgender people felt they had to be grateful for the mere fact that Hollywood was willing to tell their stories — albeit with non-trans stars, such as Hilary Swank in 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, Felicity Huffman in 2005’s Transamerica, or Jared Leto in Quebec director Jean-Marc Vallée’s 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club. (Swank and Leto won Oscars and Huffman was nominated.)
“I don’t begrudge Boys Don’t Cry anything,” Schofield says, “but times have changed. We have trans people who are professionally trained artists.”
An even deeper problem, says Adams, is the impression given the public when an actor who is not transgender appears on the red carpet in a beard and tuxedo after playing a trans woman in a wig and a dress. “It reinforces in some people’s minds that trans people’s identities are not real — that it’s a costume, a show, a performance,” says Adams, who is a trans man. “That fundamental misunderstanding about who trans people are is toxic, and it can lead to violence.”
GLAAD also advocates, of course, for better representation of gays and lesbians in Hollywood. But the difference, says Adams, is that trans people are fighting for their very identity to be recognized: “Often we’re told our gender identity is not real, that it’s all in our heads.”
Some directors who’ve hired trans actors note that they bring a perspective that non-trans actors can’t. Dutch director Maria Peters, who hired Schofield for The Conductor, says the pivotal role he plays required an innate understanding of both genders.
“I told Scott I would hire him again to play a man OR a woman,” she says. In an ideal world, anybody could play anything, she says. But, “Transgender actors are fed up with not having been taken seriously for so many years.”
The trans community was buoyed last year when A Fantastic Woman won the Oscar for best foreign language film, starring trans actress Daniela Vega as a transgender character. Adams says that victory was significant for the struggle for more prominent trans representation in movies.
Backlash was swift when Johansson announced plans in July to play the real-life character of Dante (Tex) Gill, a trans man. She initially responded that criticism “can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor (of TV’s Transparent), Jared Leto and Felicity Huffman’s reps.”
Johansson later switched course, saying her earlier statement was insensitive.
“I understand why many feel (the character) should be portrayed by a transgender person, and I am thankful that this casting debate, albeit controversial, has sparked a larger conversation about diversity and representation in film,” she said. It’s not clear if Rub & Tug, which Johansson was producing, will go forward.
A different casting controversy arose last year when a British broadcaster cancelled a TV comedy starring Joseph Fiennes, who is white, as Michael Jackson, in light of concerns from Jackson’s family. Fiennes said he fully supported that decision.
“It’s about listening, and making the playing ground level and fair and the opportunities level and fair.”
He said he came from the world of theatre, where experimenting with age, gender and other things is part of the creative process. But, he said, “One also has to respect that when you tread on the toes of the lives that are you’re inhabiting, of people that should also have that availability to play the parts that are THEM, I think we have to absolutely acknowledge that.”
Despite what feels like a growing attention to diversity, Hollywood films remain as white, male-dominated and non-diverse in other ways as ever, according to a recent report from the University of Southern California, which found that the representation of LBGT people, minorities, women and disabled people remained largely unchanged from the previous year.
Toward the very bottom of the list as movie characters, are disabled people, notes Lauren Appelbaum of RespectAbility, which advocates for the disabled and signed GLAAD’s open letter.
“You’d think with all the conversations going on right now, you would see an increase,” she says, pointing out that roughly one in five Americans (in Canada, the number is about one in seven) has some sort of disability. Her group seeks not just acting roles for disabled actors, but representation at all levels of the industry in a way that reflects society at large.
Beyond leading roles, there’s also a battle for the scores of background roles in every film or show that are peripheral to the story — like the person who asks, “Do you want fries with that?”
“We’re a part of the tapestry of the world,” Schofield says. “We should be on screen.”
I don’t begrudge Boys Don’t Cry anything, but times have changed. We have trans people who are professionally trained artists. SCOTT TURNER SCHOFIELD, trans star of The Conductor