The casting directors Lora Kennedy and David Rubin who had worked on Superman Returns, Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who were responsible for casting Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, spoke with SCPR and as you hear in the interview they describe what goes behind casting known and unknown actors involved, the Ben Affleck backlash and ethnicity concerns.
To listen to the interview visit Scpr.org.
On casting Henry Cavill:
“We had gone through a series of trying to reboot it with a bunch of different directors, and then we finally settled on a director [Bryan Singer] and an actor [Brandon Routh],” Kennedy said. “And that film got made, and he was really lovely, but we had also tested Henry at that time.”
That would be Henry Cavill, who’d go on to star in “Man of Steel.”
“And [Brandon Routh] was fantastic, but the film just didn’t work as well as they had hoped, so we rebooted it seven years later, and Henry was still around,” Kennedy said. “And so I said to him, ‘Let’s try this one more time, you and me. Come in, let’s you and me read this one more time, let’s give it one more shot.’ And he was it. And we just submitted him to the directors and the producers, and luckily Chris Nolan was producing, Zack Snyder was directing, and everybody was in agreement that Henry was the guy. And it took Henry and I seven, eight years to make that happen, but I knew it.”
On casting Gal Gadot:
“Because the legend of Wonder Woman is that she’s from Greece, and the fan base needs these kinds of things to be paid attention to,” Kennedy said. “We had seen Gal [Gadot] in the ‘Fast and Furious’ series and really loved her, and then we met her. And she’s absolutely fantastic. She’s 5’10”, she’s a supermodel, and she was in the Israeli army.”
On casting Ben Affleck:
“I think Ben handled it really well, but I think it was hard on him. I don’t think, at any time, people can’t expect that to not have an effect on these actors. It doesn’t matter if it’s Ben or anybody. All this negativity, and this anonymous hating that goes on on these websites is really out of control.”
“No one knows what kind of Batman we’re making,” Kennedy said. “No one knows the character of Batman in this particular movie. It’s not Christian [Bale]. It’s a new Batman, and Ben is a new Batman, and he has a new take on it, and he’s worked very hard at this, and he has committed himself to it, and I think people are really going to be surprised.”
Source: SCPR
- Said Taghmaoui Training for Wonder Woman 1984? - September 7, 2018
- Jay Oliva Worked a Bit on The Batman with Ben Affleck - July 6, 2018
- Supergirl the Movie Will be Receiving a San Diego Comic Con Panel - July 6, 2018