There are some roles some actors just aren’t meant for.
That’s something Cameron Crowe now realizes, after the uproar over his decision to cast Emma Stone as a character of Asian descent in the just-released film “Aloha.”
“I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice,” the director, 57, wrote in a blog post on his website, The Uncool, on Tuesday.
In the movie, Stone plays Allison Ng, a Hawaii native who’s a quarter Chinese. Crowe — who highlights the diverse crew that worked on the movie elsewhere in the post — said despite Stone not having Asian heritage, he cast her in part to highlight the island state’s cultural diversity.
“As far back as 2007, Captain Allison Ng was written to be a super-proud ¼ Hawaiian who was frustrated that, by all outward appearances, she looked nothing like one,” he explained. “A half-Chinese father was meant to show the surprising mix of cultures often prevalent in Hawaii. Extremely proud of her unlikely heritage, she feels personally compelled to over-explain every chance she gets. The character was based on a real-life, red-headed local who did just that.”
Whether or not that was his intent — and despite the research that Stone put into the role to make her depiction as accurate as possible — the decision to give the part to the Oscar nominee has angered some who wonder why someone with Asian roots wasn’t cast instead, something the director writes that he understands.
“I am grateful for the dialogue,” Crowe wrote. “And from the many voices, loud and small, I have learned something very inspiring. So many of us are hungry for stories with more racial diversity, more truth in representation, and I am anxious to help tell those stories in the future.”