Posted: 12/21/15 at 10:25am
Posted: 12/21/15 at 10:36am
J.K. Rowling defends casting of a black Hermoine:
Via Twitter:
Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione 
Updated On: 12/21/15 at 10:36 AM
Posted: 12/21/15 at 10:43am
Not a Harry Potter fan, but very excited for Parker. Hopefully he will tread the boards of the Great White Way again soon.
Updated On: 12/21/15 at 10:43 AM
Posted: 12/21/15 at 12:03pm
Love love love it. Jamie Parker will be fabulous too. I agree that in the headshots at the top of the article, it looks like Ron and Harry should be switched, but I think the full-body shot shows that they are well cast. And having seen Jamie live, he's definitely more of a Harry.
Posted: 12/21/15 at 3:14pm
I have been going to the theatre now, for 58 years. So it's very sad to see that a casting announcement for a play in London, Is dominated on this board by the race of the actors. We are used to blind casting in the UK, it should not be an issue. Racism it would seem, still rules in the US. Little wonder the West End board is being ignored. I returned last week, from my last ever visit to NY & Broadway. Now that Broadway is dominated by corporate theatre, with UK imports to provide added class. I have come to realise, it will be no great loss.
Posted: 12/21/15 at 8:18pm
Although this movie is a sequel to the books, and not to the other movies, the appearance of the leads in the previous movies are hard to get out of someone's mind. The HP issue is similar to "Star Trek," which had to deal with the Klingons' growth of head ridges. When someone asked Worf what happened, he said, "We don't discuss it with outsiders." Another bit of dialogue explained that it was a radiation accident.
I hope that the new HP movie contains a brief reference to something magical that changed the appearance of the three lead characters.
Audrey
Posted: 12/21/15 at 8:23pm
I hope that the new HP movie contains a brief reference to something magical that changed the appearance of the three lead characters.
They're not in the new movie, though? If you mean the play, how about the passage of nineteen years?
We are used to blind casting in the UK, it should not be an issue.
It's not necessarily color-blind casting, as Hermione may have been black all along. It'd have been nice if they took this approach with the movies, but what the hey.
Posted: 12/21/15 at 9:23pm
Anyone who cares if she's black or white has a problem.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 12:28am
Oops, for some reason, I was thinking that the new HP is a movie, just like the Eddie Redmayne prequel coming out soon. The cast's appearance shouldn't be as much an issue on stage, where audiences are more used to suspending disbelief than in movies; even when the story itself is pure fantasy, movie audiences demand realistic-looking action in live-action motion pictures.
The movies moved HP's scar. I wonder if this production will move it back to where the book had it.
Audrey Liebross
Posted: 12/22/15 at 11:20am
I have a problem with this casting as it detracts of the image that has been built around the character for years.
I loved the Harry Potter books, loved the characters - the white, black and scaly ones!
Political correctness sometimes goes too far. Why cant fans complain that the casting of an actor or actress goes against what they had imagined in their heads for years?
I hope Noma does a great job next year, however the production team have already made her job ten times harder convincing me that she is Hermione. People are always going to judge on appearance. Similar Paul will have a hard time convincing me he is Ron as he doesn't have red hair. In addition Noma and Paul look a good five to ten years older than Jamie, who in my opinion is looks the correct age Harry, Hermione and Ron should be in the play. Harry, Hermione and Ron are 18 at the end of Dealth Hallows, therefore Cursed Child takes place 19 years later which makes the trio 37-ish. Both Noma and Paul look like they are in their late forties.
In summary I don't think colour blind casting was the correct choice in this instance, I don't think casting a non-red head in one of the most famous ginger roles was the correct choice and I don't think the ages of the actors was the correct choice either!
I guess its now over to the actors to convince me otherwise when I see the plays next year! 
Posted: 12/22/15 at 4:27pm
Why cant fans complain that the casting of an actor or actress goes against what they had imagined in their heads for years?
Because your head and my head didn't imagine it the same way. Shouldn't be that hard to grasp.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 4:40pm
"I hope Noma does a great job next year, however the production team have already made her job ten times harder convincing me that she is Hermione."
This is a story about wizards, magic, and mythical beasts...but a black woman in a role is what you'll have the hardest time believing?
Seriously?
Posted: 12/22/15 at 4:42pm
"Why cant fans complain that the casting of an actor or actress goes against what they had imagined in their heads for years?"
Except a huge number of fans have imagined Hermione as black.
And fans ARE complaining, unfortunately. IIRC, when the Hunger Games movies came out, fans complained that they made a character black, even though her race was actually specified in the book...it's interesting that even in the case of Hermione, in which her race was never specified, it's STILL not deemed okay, in the eyes of many, to make her black...
And I roll my eyes everytime someone brings up political correctness in a situation like this.
I'm happy for this casting, and I hope she does a great job!
Posted: 12/22/15 at 4:48pm
To follow that, I doubt any of the people complaining about a black Hermione had no issue with the casting of Lavender Brown in the film series. Lavender, played by two black actresses (Kathleen Cauley in Chamber of Secrets and Jennifer Smith in Prisoner of Azkaban), was later changed to a white actress, Jessie Cave, when she became a more featured role in the sixth film.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 5:21pm
In the artwork for the books, which JK Rowling most definitely approved, Hermione was white. In the movie series, which JK Rowling most definitely had a say in the casting, Hermione was white.
Therefore, originally Hermione was indicated to be a white British girl.
But Hermione being black in the play is intriguing, yes I agree. Will it be hard for me to get a different picture in my head yes it will be.
The same would be said if they cast a white actor to play Kingsley Shacklebolt or a woman to play professor Dumbledore.
I also have a major problem with the casting of Ron. He isn't a proper red head. Yes, they can use wig, hair dye, but look at the horrendous colour of the twins, Fred & George, in the Harry Potter series who did dye their hair.) Also Noma and Paul look too old to be playing the parts, in addition the look five to ten older than Jamie. No one comments on those. Instead the people who have imagined this character in a certain are being vilified for saying the are disappointed. Some people may have imagined Hermione as black in the books, however they were the minority.
As as I have said I wish Noma, Jamie and Paul the best of luck in their roles. And I hope they prove me wrong when I see them next year. But I can't help but be a little bit disappointed that the actors who will be playing my iconic childhood heroes will not look like I imagined they would at the end of Deathly Hallows 19 years later. Let's hope they are good enough actors to bring forward the characterisation in the books.
Updated On: 12/23/15 at 05:21 PM
Posted: 12/22/15 at 5:27pm
The key phrase is as YOU imagined. For YOU, white seems to be default (why else would you bring up Kingsley Shacklebolt as a white actor), but in this production, Hermione will be a black actor.
Why is this so threatening to people? Makes literally zero sense to me.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 5:28pm
The actors who play Harry and Ron CAN wear wigs, you know.
If an actress plays Rapunzel in Into the Woods, she's probably not going to grow her hair several feet long.
Amber Riley didn't dye her hair blue for The Wiz, either.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 5:30pm
Posted: 12/22/15 at 6:31pm
"I'm not racist if I think a colored mudblood is wrong, wrong, totally WRONG for Hermione cuz I read the books and know exactly what she looks like from the movies!"
Posted: 12/22/15 at 7:14pm
"Magic"
"Ok"
"Werewolves"
"Sure"
"Time travel"
"Why not"
"Black Hermione"
"WOAH WAIT HOLD THE PHONE"
Posted: 12/22/15 at 7:23pm
This isn't about race, this is about the casting of actors who don't match what some people had imagined.
People are allowed to be disappointed. At the moment we have nothing but their physicality to comment on. By posts above I've made comments on not thinking Paul looks right as wrong hair colour and also the ages seem mismatched between the trio. But no mention of that.
Updated On: 12/23/15 at 07:23 PM
Posted: 12/22/15 at 7:34pm
Hair is one thing.
Skin color is a whole other realm you just can't understand apparently.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 8:10pm
If you say you imagined her like the illustrations from the book, then you didn't imagine her at all. You let the illustrations imagine everything for you.
Just because JK Rowling approved the illustrations (and I'm not sure she did, because often, VERY often, authors have no say in who is chosen for the illustrations or in the artwork itself---especially with a then-unknown author), it doesn't mean this is her only vision of how the character might look. She has approved a black Hermione herself.
If we were locked into the illustrations in a book, then Margaret Hamilton never would have looked the way she did in the iconic role of the Wicked Witch of the West. The book illustrations look nothing like that.
Vivien Leigh never would have played Scarlett O'Hara. The opening line of the book is "Scarlett O'Hara was not pretty ..."
As an author myself, I do have a vision in my mind of what a character looks like, but I also realize that when the book is published, I am releasing that character into the minds of readers. That character is no longer "mine," living solely in my own imagination. I am sharing that character with each individual, and the visions of everyone are never the same exactly (or even remotely).
Open up your mind, and leave your prejudices at the door.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 8:29pm
"If we were locked into the illustrations in a book, then Margaret Hamilton never would have looked the way she did..."
Which would have suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked so baaaaaaaaad. It just would've.
Posted: 12/22/15 at 9:28pm
I don't think ANY of the three leads look enough like the images we've built up. Hermione could have, and perhaps should have, been black in the motion pictures. However, once Emma Watson was cast as Hermione, and Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint as Harry and Ron, their images became seared in the minds of the HP fans.
BTW, I still can't cope with Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk in the new Star Trek movies. Zachary Quinto, whom I assume is Hispanic, is PERFECT casting to play Spock, because he looks so much like the late Leonard Nimoy, who was not Hispanic, but an Ashkenazic Jew.
I realize that there are bigots out there who don't want a black Hermione. I, on the other hand, don't like the idea of changing a character's appearance. Would anyone really want to see Eddie Redmayne as Rhett Butler in a GWTW sequel, no matter how good an actor he is?
