Yahoo News Peter Dinklage responds to 'whitewashing' claims
Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage has been discussing the whitewashing controversy surrounding his new HBO film My Dinner With Hervé.
Dinklage will star as Hervé Villechaize, the actor best known for playing Nick Nack in Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, but some have criticised the casting, claiming Herve was half-French and half-Filipino.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Dinklage addressed the accusations of whitewashing, explaining that Herve was actually French and of German and English descent, and that people were commenting without the proper information.
"The internet is the best thing and the worst thing," he said. "The funny thing about the backlash is it addresses what we address in the film about not judging a book by its cover. Hervé was judged by how he looked, and cast and perceived to be who he is accordingly. It says [Villechaize was half-Filipino] on Wikipedia."
Dinklage continued: "There's this term 'whitewashing'. I completely understand that. But Hervé wasn't Filipino. Dwarfism manifests physically in many different ways. I have a very different type of dwarfism than Hervé had. I've met his brother and other members of his family. He was French, and of German and English descent. So it's strange these people are saying he's Filipino. They kind of don't have any information.
"I don't want to step on anybody's toes or sense of justice because I feel the exact same way when there's some weird racial profile. But these people think they're doing the right thing politically and morally and it's actually getting flipped because what they're doing is judging and assuming what he is ethnically based on his looks alone."
My Dinner With Hervé will be released October 20, 2018.
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