Brian Damage
02-28-2008, 09:57 PM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23355333/
A couple days ago a casting notice went out for Shelter -- a Julianne Moore/Jonathan Rhys Meyers thriller about to start filming in Pittsburgh -- It included a call for people to play West Virginia hillbillies. Specifically, they wanted "unusual body shapes, even physical abnormalities as long as there is normal mobility. Unusual facial features.... We are also looking for a ... girl with an other-worldly look to her. Could be an albino or something along those lines.... 'Regular-looking' children should not attend this open call."
The Pittsburgh-based casting director responsible for this, Donna Belajac, has now been fired -- not because of the casting notice, but because of the uproar that followed her comments quoted in a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story on Tuesday: "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."
She added that "it's not meant to be a generalization about everyone in West Virginia," but that didn't stop people -- including West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd -- from becoming outraged. The paper's follow-up story on Wednesday included Byrd's declaration that "this casting call reflects the insensitivity and stupidity of a sheltered film industry."
A couple days ago a casting notice went out for Shelter -- a Julianne Moore/Jonathan Rhys Meyers thriller about to start filming in Pittsburgh -- It included a call for people to play West Virginia hillbillies. Specifically, they wanted "unusual body shapes, even physical abnormalities as long as there is normal mobility. Unusual facial features.... We are also looking for a ... girl with an other-worldly look to her. Could be an albino or something along those lines.... 'Regular-looking' children should not attend this open call."
The Pittsburgh-based casting director responsible for this, Donna Belajac, has now been fired -- not because of the casting notice, but because of the uproar that followed her comments quoted in a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story on Tuesday: "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."
She added that "it's not meant to be a generalization about everyone in West Virginia," but that didn't stop people -- including West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd -- from becoming outraged. The paper's follow-up story on Wednesday included Byrd's declaration that "this casting call reflects the insensitivity and stupidity of a sheltered film industry."