Thandiwe Newton, an actor, spoke out about colorism in film. She said, “I have longed to so desperately apologize, every day, to darker skinned actors.” “To say, sorry that I was chosen.”
Newton, who is biracial is often criticised for her lighter skin. She was cast in 2012 as an Igbo female in Half a Yellow Sun. This caused a lot of controversy online. After being criticized in The Guardian for calling herself “the first dark-skinned female in a leading role in Star Wars Legacy,” she responded on Twitter in 2018.
She spoke out about how her experiences with prejudice helped her prepare for her starring role in God’s Country.
She said, “It doesn’t matter that it’s from African American women more than any other,” “I was subject to prejudice. “Anyone who has been subject to prejudice feels this way.”
She has spoken out before about Hollywood’s colorism. “I was perceived in many different ways. It was always about the person who was perceiving. It was very much about the spectrum of “Is she Black enough or too Black?” In 2020, she spoke to Vulture.
“Nowadays there is regret for us. It is difficult for dark-skinned ladies, especially, to be substituted or ignored. You watch Queen & Slim. I look at Jodie [Turner-Smith]. Or, you look at Lupita [Nyong’o]. To see a woman with color, to see her beautiful dark skin and chocolate skin (my mother’s skin), onscreen It’s holy. It’s clear to me why there has been such deep disappointment.”
Newton’s comments are coming at a time where many films have been criticised for not having enough actors with darker skin tones. Lin-Manuel Miranda recently apologised for not including more dark-skinned Afro-Latinos on the film version Of In the Heights. The casting of Zazie Beetz, actor in the Netflix movie The Harder They Fall, as Stagecoach Mary was also criticized.
