Peter Jackson’s troubled The Hobbit project was embroiled in a race row Monday over a casting agent sacked for telling a would-be extra she was too dark to play one of the pint-sized creatures.
The independent contractor who made the comments and placed an advertisement in a local newspaper specifying female hobbit extras “should have light skin tones” had been dismissed, a spokesman for Jackson’s Wingnut Films said.
“No such instructions were given, the crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” he told AFP.
The row erupted after Briton Naz Humphreys, who has Pakistani heritage, attended a casting session in the New Zealand city of Hamilton last week, queuing for three hours only to be told her skin tone was not suitable. “It’s 2010 and I still can’t believe I’m being discriminated against because I have brown skin,” Humphreys told the Waikato Times newspaper. “The casting manager basically said they weren’t having anybody who wasn’t pale-skinned.” Humphreys has started a Facebook group called “Hire hobbits of all colours! Say no to hobbit racism!” The Waikato Times said video footage showed the casting agent telling people at the audition, “We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be — whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a hobbit.”
The agent also placed a classified advertisement in the Bay of Plenty Times listing essential requirements for potential hobbits, including age, 16-80, and height — below 170 cm for men and 158cm for women.