Solo [Official Info] Emilia Clarke (Qi'ra) in Solo

Not everyone cares, or relates to characters based on the same paradigms. I’m a female and I never cared that my main favorite characters have been constantly male with only one exception. I cared a lot more about the non-American/British Rogue One casting.
But just because I don’t care, for instance, about Rey or the actress, I am not going to deny that she WAS a big deal for many. I now have some female friends converted to Star Wars fandom that I never thought it would have happened before. And when you are surrounded by these examples, it’s really hard to just shrug it off and say “who cares”.

On a side note, I would love your suggestion for Clarke! I have been long dreaming of a badass female villain in a SW movie, but a criminal scum would do.

 

Not that diverse at all really

 

I wonder if a SW film will ever have a blonde lead again? Or a blonde supporting character for that matter.

 

I did emphasize that the who cares applies to me and the people I know and that this wasn't the case for everyone and that's fine.

As for more females getting into SW with more females main characters it's true. My sisters never cared for SW but female main character in Rey got them more interested than ever. I have 1 sister in computer engineering and another in building engineering and having a character in Rey be so technical in skills that related to them more than some kick ass woman.

 

It's just a series of tidbits that paint a sketchy picture...

1) it's not like they cast Meryl Streep. If I'm being generous, Emilia Clarke is average at best.
2) Lucasfilm and and Disney are so good at finding a wide range of talented actors, but somehow there's a shortage of non-white actresses out there?
3) Emilia was apparently up against FIVE actresses of color. Are you telling me not a single one of them did a better job than mediocre-to-average Emilia Clarke? Like I said, benefit of the doubt... but there are enough reasons to raise eyebrows.

 

They were this close to have a Chinese actor from Macau so we could say he is “kinda Portuguese”.

 

eh SW doesn't cast great actors to begin with or if they cast great actors for SW (Guinness/Lee/Cushing) their performance aren't anything amazing. I don't find a single actor did an amazing job acting wise, whether the old cast or anyone from the new cast. I still enjoy their performances but nothing extraordinary.

 

Emilia Clarke is a bigger name. Bigger than her co-stars globally. Marketing matters and who is best at putting butts in seats is sometimes a business consideration.

And Star Wars isn't about the industry's best acting. Nobody's winning any big 'serious' awards for Star Wars acting.

 

I wouldn't even say that's true, SW does not need and has never needed big names to sell itself. The SW brand sells itself.

it's like saying what sold people on Terminator 5 was Emilia when I doubt that was the case.

 

You're not wrong, but I wonder how much that really matters here. It's not the 90s you can't just put X star in a movie and guarantee a 100 million dollar weekend. She's known, but not near that level anyways. Look what she did for terminator salvation. Not to mention its sw and that draw is going to vastly outweigh the actor choice. Clearly didn't matter for the lead. Plus I'd imagine there is enough cross over between the game of thrones fans and the star wars fans that a venn diagram would just be a circle.

 

I blame Nina Gold.

 

I have never seen GoT, and Terminator Genysis isn't the greatest film by which to judge anyone's acting ability. You Before Me would probably be a better yardstick, but I haven't seen that either. So I have no idea whether to have a positive or negative reaction to this. I am surprised, since I was fully expecting a non-white lady to be cast first. Not upset, just surprised. Of course, we don't really know what type of character she was chosen for, and she could wind up playing a non-human character for that matter. Disney/LFL is generally very good at casting, though, so I'll just choose to trust them for now.

 

Agreed she is bigger, and that is meaningful. It isn't everything in terms of why they would hire her, but it is a factor. Yes, as others point out, SW sells itself to some degree, but not entirely. Samuel L. Jackson, Liam Neeson, etc. also are put in for a reason, and that is not ONLY because they are good. The Big 3 don't have legendary acting chops, but they were important to have, and unquestionably expanded the viewership; it is not reasonable in every circumstance to say "why didn't they hire the better-acting minority?" I am totally not believing it was a bunch of Donald Trump types that only wanted the white people; I really don't see any way that it is "suspect" to hire her, especially given we don't have a lot of the cast yet. I agree that diversity is good, and being open minded to different people in various roles is a good idea; that does NOT mean we can make assumptions every time a particular person is cast.

I believe they cast her because they thought she was best for the part. She is quite charismatic, and has a presence on screen. No, she is not Meryl Streep, but I don't want Meryl Streep as the Mother of Dragons, I want Emilia. If they felt that presence was good for the particular part for which they hired her, then great. She has been nominated for and won multiple Emmy's, and I disagree that she is average. I see no reason to second guess them at this point. I like her a lot, and so do a lot of other people. Nothing wrong with hiring someone people like, yes?

 

Sounds good to me. I love female British actresses.

 

people complaining again? Will i ever live the day when i visit this forum and people are not overreacting about everything? i don't think she's a great actress neither, but come on, this ethnicity talks are getting ridiculous. It's obvious they made some effort to introduce a diverse cast in all new SW films. Maybe they just thought Emilia Clarke is alright for the role and nailed her audition and has chemistry with the other actor? Maybe we'll be disappointed, maybe not...but nothing to do with her being white, british and brunette or not.

 

Is she going to do to SW, what she did to Terminator?

 

Emilia is playing Ahsoka!

 

just once i'd like to read about casting in SW without the nonsense of race baiting.

can we do that?

one side was pissed with all the minoriites and women in TFA now the other side is pissed that there's another british white woman in han solo.

all of you need to get over it already.

 

Nope! Especially since the new president of the united states is a racist. This discussion is more important than ever!

 

Yeah it's not wrong to say "hey why do all of the main females in SW films tend to be White dark-haired British women?" Because yeah, it's a noticeable trend. And especially so here because all of the main choices rumored (Zo Kravitz, Tessa Thompson, Naomi Scott, etc) were at least part-WOC, and yet they went with Clarke (who wasn't even part of those rumors really).

"Maybe we can get a WOC in a lead role in one of these movies, because it's not happened up until now," is not that unreasonable a suggestion. So other people complaining about "why can't you just be satisfied" is the problem here. Because if you just "settle" for what's given, then nothing tends to ever change. It's not like they're trashing the entire film after all, they're just critiquing one part of it.

 

Funny how I've never seen anyone here complain about the countless white British male actors cast as Imperials/First Order officers

Fact is there's more diversity in the ST & spin-off casting than we've ever seen in SW. That's what matters.

 

at the same time, we know absolutely nothing. We don't know what the directors were looking for or the criteria for the role or why Emilia won the role. The role was open casting no one ever said this role was only for mixed raced or WOC. It really does seem like what made the biggest damage is Variety giving a list of supposed actresses (who we later found out only made up 1 group of actresses)and all were mixed race woman.

people can complain it's your right but how will all this complaining look if we find out they were casting more than 1 female role? The casting of this film isn't done, 3 actors don't make up this entire film. Emilia was also said to be one of the many characters that Han/Chewie meet in the film.

This isn't TFA, where we had all the main actors cast and announced in one shot. And people complained even then because of the lack of females without knowing that the main character of the ST was a female (even though rumors always had a female lead of the ST).

 

don't know much about her? is she a good actress and what has she been in??