NEW YORK (AP) — Samuel L. Jackson has criticized the casting of black British actors in American films like the horror hit “Get Out” and the Martin Luther King Jr. drama “Selma.”
In an interview Monday, Jackson noted that a lot of roles are going to British actors. He said he wondered what “Get Out” would have been like “with an American brother who really feels that.” Jordan Peele’s film is about an African-American photographer, played by the British actor Daniel Kaluuya, whose white girlfriend brings him home to her parents’ house.
Jackson also pointed to Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” which starred David Oyelowo as King.
John Boyega, the British “Star Wars” star, on Twitter called the debate a “stupid” conflict “we don’t have time for.”
But Jackson said afterwards that he wasn’t trying to slam black British actors when he criticized their casting in American films such as the horror hit “Get Out” and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. drama “Selma.”
Jackson told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his comments Monday on the radio station Hot 97 were more of an observation about “how Hollywood works in an interesting sort of way sometimes.”
He noted at the premiere of “Kong: Skull Island” that black British actors drop their accents to work on American films, but the same opportunity isn’t necessarily given to black American actors.
Jackson said he respects and likes working with his British counterparts.
PHOTO: AP
