- “I remember at the time having a question mark in my own mind, and being attendant to the public response to the idea that a Scottish woman will be playing this character, and being aware that there was no resistance at all — there was widespread welcome — which shifted at a certain point, for very good reasons with which I had an enormous amount of sympathy,” she said.
- In 2016, Swinton defended playing the role of The Ancient One, stating Feige and director Scott Derrickson “made this very clear decision” to cast her in the role in “what they considered an offensive racial stereotype in the comic books,” according to IndieWire.
- However, in May, Feige admitted they made a mistake by casting Swinton as The Ancient One.
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- Cho had never met Swinton before when the latter contacted her.
- The comedian, who is of Korean descent, described it as “weird” during a guest appearance on the TigerBelly podcast with fellow Asian American comedian Bobby Lee in December 2016.
- After the guest appearance, Swinton’s camp shared the email exchange she had with the comedian to Jezebel. On the surface, the two seemed to have had a fairly amicable discussion.
- She said her “questionable decision” to reach out to Cho was “naive and clearly confusing” and added, “I was embarrassed that I had maybe gone up a blind alley in starting the correspondence in the first place — maybe I had confused matters — but beyond that, I have zero regrets.”