In are-you-kidding-me Hollywood news, Dope actress Zoe Kravitz says she was denied the chance to audition for a small part in The Dark Knight Rises, because filmmakers said they “weren’t going urban”.
"In the last Batman movie, they told me that I couldn't get an audition for a small role they were casting because they weren't ‘going urban,’” she revealed to Nylon. “It was like, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ I have to play the role like, ‘Yo, what’s up, Batman? What’s going on wit chu?!’”
Kravitz also spoke about her own struggles with institutionalised racism and being one of few black kids in her school. She said: "I identified with white culture, and I wanted to fit in. I didn't identify with black culture, like, I didn't like Tyler Perry movies, and I wasn't into hip-hop music. I liked Neil Young."
"Black culture is so much deeper than that," she continued, "but unfortunately that is what's fed through the media. That's what people see. That's what I saw. But then I got older and listened to A Tribe Called Quest and watched films with Sidney Poitier, and heard Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. I had to un-brainwash myself. It's my mission, especially as an actress."
The Batman film, released in 2012, is the third in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. Before its release, there was uproar among fans because of the decision to cast Tom Hardy, an English actor, as the villain Bane, who is meant to be from a fictional Caribbean island.
At least we’re glad to see Kravitz speak out about the incident. It's time more of us got real about racistm in Hollywood. You do you, Zoe.
