Eddie Red-maybe

[birdsofshore]

So, what do we think about Eddie Redmayne apparently being confirmed in the role of Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts film?



If you're not sure who he is, he's a British actor who recently won a lot of awards for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

Personally, I think I'm fairly happy about it.

[Poll #2011357][Poll #2011357]

Is there a different actor you hoped would star in the film? Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments, please!

Comments

[snowgall]

I think this is a great point. It would have been awesome to have a POC main character in an HP film. This is true even though, as birds said, 'swarthy' is not really a positive descriptor, and not one I would use for a black person.

This is off topic, but I always think of 'swarthy' as the perfect description of all the men on my mother's side of the family. They're 'white', but 'ethnic' looking. My cousins and uncles all have dark olive skin and heavy 5-o'clock shadows by noon (think 'Brad Garrett' from Everybody Loves Raymond and you'll be pretty close). My grandpa looked almost *exactly* like Fred Flintstone. So mom's side of the family is very definitely on the dark end of 'white'. My dad is from scots-Irish stock, however, and I inherited my lily-white skin from him. So not swarthy. But one of my sisters takes after my mom and has darker skin and hair than me. Genetics is weird.

[birdsofshore]

Gosh, this is not really a proper reply to your comment, but I love that Fred Flintstone look where a man really has a distinct dark patch on their jaw like a cartoon!

*gets lost in thoughts of stubble kink*

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally agree about the descriptor and its connotations. I would've assumed Mediterranean before black from "swarthy," but would've been still been more okay with that, and would find that more interesting in the context - 1920s NYC, loads of immigration happening - than a posh white British guy. And could've seen it as a really interesting way to go, even, because, as you rightly point out, "white" is a much more complicated category than white or not white, and in that time and place "swarthy" didn't really count as white. So many interesting things to explore! Or, in this case...not.