Recently Scarlett Johansson dropped a role she had previously accepted due to backlash she received from an advocacy group. She was supposed to play a transgender man in the role. The advocacy group said the role should have been given to an actual transgender person instead. Other sides had the opinion that it is acting and she was just doing her job, since all acting usually requires an actor to be a different character then they are themselves.

My question is not transgender specific, it is more about weather or not casting directors need to consider an actor’s personal truths when they are offered a role. Do you think Scarlett Johansson was wrong to have originally been offered or accepting of this role? Are some character traits important to cast within and others not so much?

It seems to me like physical traits are important —— you wouldn’t hire a white actor and put them in darker makeup to play a different race, or if the character had a certain kind of rare physical disability maybe it shouldn’t be faked by an able-bodied person... or maybe that is just a test of an actors skill? Some traits are not always clearly visual or known outright, like gender or sexual preference. Should a gay person only play homosexual roles and a straight person only play heterosexual roles? Should a woman only be allowed to play a Mom if they are a Mom in real life? If an actor states publicly that they are a virgin, should they be allowed to act in sex scenes. As you can see, there are probably a lot of questions there and obviously some are probably more serious then others depending on who you ask.

What does CC think?

**if you google Scarlett Johansson and Transgender roles you can read the whole story, but again this question is not intended to be only about gender in acting.