Director Guy Ritchie Addresses Blue Genie Concerns in Aladdin
There has been a lot of chatter over the last few days about Disney’s live action remake of the 1992 animated blockbuster Aladdin.
Blue Genie
First, when the cover of Entertainment Weekly came out and Will Smith, who is portraying Aladdin’s Genie, was gracing the cover, fans went blue — well, complained about the lack of blue that is. The rapper-turned-actor assured the fans that he indeed will be blue for the movie, thanks to CGI technology.
Director Guy Ritchie
On Friday, Aladdin’s director Guy Ritchie’s interview with Entertainment Weekly was published and Ritchie also assured Disney die-hards that Smith will be blue and he described why Smith made the perfect choice as the Genie from a physical standpoint.
Photo Credit: Daniel Smith https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-4470644/Guy-Ritchie-new-film-King-Arthur.html
“I wanted a muscular 1970s dad — he was big enough to feel like a force, not so muscular that he looked like he was counting his calories but formidable enough to look like you knew when he was in the room.”
More Suitors for Jasmine
He also talks a bit about Billy Magnussen’s Prince Anders of Skånland and introducing more suitors to Jasmine. “It’s a question of appropriate suitors, so there’s different ways of recognizing and illustrating the appropriate characteristics that our rather sophisticated Jasmine needs in order to have a relationship that’s based on equal merit,” he said.
Photo Credit: Daniel Smith – Disney
Concerns?
When asked if he was concerned telling the stories of people and cultures of color while being a white, English man, Ritchie called it a loaded question and said that five years ago no one would have asked him that question. “What the film’s about is a particular environment, however the challenges that the individual has to transcend are the same for any ethnicity or culture. And that is not affected by the color or the culture in this particular case,” he said.
When the writer said that as someone of English and Indian descent, she would have asked him the question years ago, Ritchie’s said that basically “actors are supposed to act and directors are supposed to direct,” he said. “I can’t say how it would feel like to be Asian, but I don’t think it’s relevant. What’s relevant is to be human.”
Source: EW.com
