‘Wonka’ Catches Heat for Casting Hugh Grant as Oompa-Loompa

Hugh Grant might be a hot commodity right now after Paddington 2 and Dungeons & Dragons, but not everyone is thrilled to see the actor playing an Oompa-Loompa in Wonka.

A prequel to Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wonka will tell “the wondrous story of how the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate-maker became the beloved Willy Wonka we know today,” according to its official summary. While past films have cast actors with dwarfism as Oompa-Loompas, this film appears to be moving away from that tradition.

As CNN, CBS News, and other outlets reported Thursday, people with dwarfism have already begun speaking out against the casting.

Actor George Coppen, who has dwarfism, wrote on Instagram that in the past two Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptations—the first, from 1971, starring Gene Wilder, and the second, from 2005, starring Johnny Depp—“all the Oompa-Loompas have been played by dwarves.” This time, he wrote, “they have decided to take work away from us.”

Coppen noted that he’s unaware if Grant will play the only Oompa-Loompa in the film, or if other actors might play more of Wonka’s orange-skinned workforce. “This isn’t a post saying I’m not happy so I won’t see [the movie],” he added, “but a lot of people wouldn’t realise what something like this means to people like me.”

Coppen expanded on his Instagram post Wednesday in an interview with the BBC. He said that he first began thinking about the casting pitfalls that people in his community face when James Nesbitt played the dwarf Bofur in The Hobbit.

“A lot of actors [with dwarfism] feel like we are being pushed out of the industry we love,” Coppen told the BBC. “... A lot of people, myself included, argue that dwarfs should be offered everyday roles in dramas and soaps, but we aren’t getting offered those roles.”

Representatives for Grant did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment. A source close to the production told The Daily Beast that Grant’s character is about 20 inches tall, in keeping with the books, and is meant to be a fictional creature that does not represent the height of a human person.

Still, the Oompa-Loompa casting conundrum underscores a growing representational issue in Hollywood, which has also played out in Disney’s upcoming Snow White remake. Last year, Peter Dinklage condemned the production for touting its Latina lead, West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler, while “still making that fucking backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.” Earlier this month, set photos seemed to indicate that the dwarves in the film have since been replaced with magical creatures of varying stature—although a representative for Disney claimed they were not “official” photos.

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In his Instagram post, Coppen acknowledged that “some people will say that roles like this are demeaning and we should be playing more ‘normal’ roles.” At the same time, he noted, “we aren’t getting offered those roles,” so Wonka’s casting decision has “kind of shut one door for us without opening the other one.”

Little Women: LA star and producer Terra Jolé shared a similar sentiment with IndieWire last year on the heels of Dinklage’s Snow White comments. “Five years ago, there were constant commercial auditions,” she said. “Because of equality, and voices stating that they weren’t okay with things like elf roles, or dwarf roles, or leprechaun roles, they’ve been eliminated. And not only are you not seeing a lot of little people in in the acting industry anymore, but you’re not seeing productions being created to give little people an actual role, either.”

Comedian Brad Williams, whom CNN notes has achondroplasia (as does Coppen), spoke to that tension in a recent quote-tweet of Wonka’s trailer, which finds a digitally shrunken Hugh Grant in a jar.

“I’m really torn about this,” Williams wrote in his tweet. “One part of me is like ‘hey, we are more than just elves, leprechauns, and Oompa Loompas,’ but then this comes out and I want to scream ‘How dare they not cast a dwarf as the Oompa Loompa!’”

Actor and wrestler Dylan Postl also shared similar concerns during a panel on TalkTV. “Now, we’re not only using CGI and spending extra money and funding for these movies when we could just cast dwarves in that role,” Postl said. “Whether it be one dwarf or multiple, like they have been in the past, now you’re taking at least one role away.”

Postl added that roles in Hollywood “are very hard for people of my community to get—besides the elf, and the leprechaun, and this and that. So why are they being taken from my community?”

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