Aussie director casts his white son in role of Chinese-Australian war hero
So you’re making a mini-series on the remarkable life of a Chinese man, who fought gallantly for the Australian forces at Gallipoli during the First World War, yet was consigned on his return home to a life of penury in a discriminatory society. When casting time comes around do you A) scour the nation for a Chinese actor suited to the role B) cast an actor of some other Asian descent in a feeble nod to verisimilitude C) give the role to your Caucasian son? If you’re Geoff Davis, the director of a three-part drama called the Legend of Billy Sing, you not only opt for C, you cast another white man in the role of Sing’s Chinese father. But, hey, says Davis, the last three men to play Robin Hood were born outside of England. Which would be relevant if Robin Hood were, say, an Englishman who fought gallantly for China in a bloody war.