By Drew Dietsch
| Published
Andor Season 2 seemed to have an awful issue to deal with: Jimmy Smits would not be available to portray Bail Organa, the important adoptive father of Princess Leia. Considering that Disney has become a sea of deepfakes, there was legitimate fear we’d see some AI nightmare take the place of Jimmy Smits. Instead, Andor respected the intelligence of its audience by simply doing what we used to expect with role conflicts like this: it recast Bail Organa with Benjamin Bratt.
And no rational, well-adjusted adult cared at all. While it would have been nice to see Jimmy Smits in the role, Benjamin Bratt did the work of a professional and the show carried on. Andor Season 2 has been widely praised and it sure doesn’t seem like recasting that role was a detriment to its success.
Which is why it’s encouraging to hear James Gunn is taking the same approach with the DCU: recasting roles if an actor is no longer available for whatever reason.
The Kang Catastrophe
Obviously, a big reason recasting roles has become a major deal in major franchises is due to the fallout of what happened with Jonathan Majors and his role as Kang in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’m not going to spend my valuable time recounting or relitigating all that mishegoss, but suffice to say that Majors was positioned as the focal villain for the MCU’s next big narrative reset. Heck, the first of two announced Avengers films was even called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Due to Majors getting ousted, the Marvel machine had to recalibrate on a massive scale to swap Kang out for Doctor Doom, played by a returning Robert Downey Jr. in one of the biggest pieces of PR casting ever in movie history.
There is scuttlebutt behind the scenes that Marvel couldn’t recast Kang due to certain stipulations in Majors’ contract. That’s the alleged reason why Marvel couldn’t just plug in a new actor. I’m willing to bet that such a stipulation is going to become unwelcome to studios moving forward. With James Gunn making such a definitive statement about recasting actors, it sure looks like the DCU has already established safeguards from something as catastrophic as the Jonathan Majors/Kang scenario.
Adults Don’t Care
Now, while a recast can certainly come with a change in the quality of the performance, it doesn’t matter as long as the new actor is a professional like in the case of Benjamin Bratt in Andor. Frankly, unless you’re a simp for one particular actor, you should be able to process the change and adapt to it as an adult. You’re more than welcome to valid criticisms with a recast, but being mad at the recasting itself is not a valid criticism against the new actor.
I despise deepfakes and the inclination towards treating an actor’s image as nothing more than a toy. I don’t want to see a bunch of digital visages in movies because of talent availability or any other reason. Recasting actors is the time-proven way to approach these kinds of problems, and I’m glad that the DCU is taking the right cue from Andor on this front. Because I’m a grown-up and can deal with it.
