Last year, Lionsgate’s Hellboy reboot came in for some criticism due to the casting of Deadpool star Ed Skrein as Major Ben Daimio, a character of Asian ethnicity in the comic books.
Skrein decided to exit the project in the wake of the whitewashing controversy, with Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, Hawaii Five-O) signing on as his replacement, and in an interview with Comic Book, the actor has been reflecting on his decision to walk away from the movie.
“We have public personas and such that build up through what people translate in our images, and our aesthetics, and creating their own narratives to that, and the narratives that we create through our interviews,” said Skrein. “People build up ideas of us from the characters that we play, but people that know me personally would not be surprised by my reaction to that and that there was no option, and they would have known that that was something that I just wouldn’t have been able to enter into. Anything I do I have to do wholeheartedly, so no, it was a very simple decision. It meant a lot to me that it meant a lot to other people and that it resonated so much with people.”
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Hellboy is set for release on January 11th 2019, and is directed by Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones), with Stranger Things star David Harbour taking on the lead role alongside Ian McShane (American Gods) as Professor Broom, Sasha Lane (American Honey) as Alice Monaghan, Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) as the Queen of Blood, Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O) as Major Ben Daimio and Penelope Mitchell (The Vampire Diaries) as Ganeida.
Originally published May 28, 2018. Updated May 27, 2018.
