From Black Elphaba to Bridgerton: Diverse Casting in Hollywood

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in Wicked. Photo Credit: Universal Pictures

Wicked has been inescapable this fall – even if you didn’t join the legions of fans packing theaters to see the movie, promo has been everywhere from product partner commercials to Easter egg red carpet appearances to a weirdly emotional press tour. And with Part 2 (“Wicked: For Good”) hitting theaters next year, the buzz is far from over. 

But even before the pink and green popcorn buckets, the movie was making headlines for a very particular casting choice – Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. 

On its surface, her selection seemed like a no-brainer. Erivo is a multi-talented actress with a long list of accomplishments on both stage and screen, cruising her way to an EGOT before 40. However – as is usually the case when casting directors deviate from the original (perceived) race of the character – her casting was not without controversy.

Jane Austen fans are no secret to the thinly veiled racism that rears its head when a diverse adaptation is announced. Casting non-white actors to play traditionally white parts holds space for new creative decisions…as well as an opportunity for anonymous social media accounts to spew vitriol about them. 

Still, for both Wicked and recent Austen adaptations, diverse casting is potentially the best thing the directors could have done to breathe new life into the story. 

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba

In theory, the race of the actress playing Elphaba shouldn’t matter. After all, the character’s main feature is that she’s green. Any actress can be painted green and match Elphaba’s description. 

In this case, however, it’s clear that Erivo and the rest of the Wicked team saw an opportunity to create a new interpretation of a beloved character based on the actress chosen to portray her. 

As Cynthia herself said in an interview with Variety, 

Erivo wanted to ensure the character’s greenness didn’t hide her Blackness. “I didn’t want to remove myself from Elphaba,” she said. “I wanted to connect the two.” So, she added a couple points of emphasis for Black women to relate, including the character’s long nails and a headful of microbraids.

Ensuring the character was perceived as Black also meant Black women saw experiences and emotions that are too often dismissed or looked over reflected back at them from an unexpected source. Elphaba (spoiler) going from the Wizard’s most prized potential asset to enemy number 1 has echoes of the “pet to threat” phenomenon, when a Black woman’s expertise is valued until she begins to question existing power structures. Or being ostracized until the office (or classroom) Galinda decides that you’re suddenly acceptable and gets the rest of the community to fall in line. 

Erivo didn’t just want to be a Black woman playing Elphaba – she specifically wanted Elphaba to be read as Black. In a story that is already a clear allegory for racism and discrimination, that choice gifts the audience with an entirely new way to interpret both the character and the plot.

Diverse Austen Adaptations 

Image Credit: Hallmark Media

Of course, Wicked is far from the first movie to experiment with race-blind casting. Fans of historical dramas in particular are familiar with the ongoing debate about casting and representation. 

Austen adaptations like Sanditon and Hallmark’s 2024 Sense and Sensibility were intentionally diverse in their casting. Meanwhile, the massive success of Bridgerton and its spinoff, Queen Charlotte, shows that audiences are hungry for representation and new approaches to these stories. 

In most cases, these shows offer familiar storylines or themes repackaged in a way that draws in a new audience. For the most recent Sense and Sensibility adaptation, led by a majority-Black cast, the creators aimed to both "respect the work and do something creatively refreshing."

NPR explains how the production team stayed true to the story while using the adaptation as a chance to highlight real-life POC whose stories are often lost: 

Notable people of color in European history appear in art in the backgrounds of many scenes, on the walls of the homes the Dashwood live in and visit. That artwork includes a painting of the Saint-Domingue-born French Creole Gen. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (father of the author Alexandre Dumas, who wrote Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo)....As described on NPR's Weekend Edition, Dumas was a hero of the French Revolution, "the son of a Haitian slave and a French nobleman" who became "Napoleon's leading swordsman of the Revolution, then a prisoner, and finally almost forgotten."

….This latest Sense and Sensibility adaptation also nods to 18th-century African-American author Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) with a special moment woven into the romance as Willoughby and Marianne bond over their shared love of her poetry. 

Casting Black actresses to play the Dashwood sisters created an opportunity to introduce audiences to historical figures and realities they may never have been exposed to otherwise, dispelled the notion that people of color were virtually nonexistent in Regency England, and gifted Black audiences with the opportunity to see themselves in beloved characters for the first time. 

#RepresentationMatters

Through both Wicked and Sense and Sensibility, fans have found new ways to connect the character to their own experiences or to modern contexts. One of the beautiful things about visual media is that the creative team has countless opportunities to tell a story – the setting, costuming, and cinematography all play a part in influencing the way the audience experiences the tale. 

Diverse casting choices can change the way an audience experiences a character, in turn creating brand new interpretations and analyses of even the oldest texts. When there are new conversations and spirited debates about a piece of media, everyone wins. 

Here’s to more old stories becoming new in 2025 – and if you’re looking for more discussions like this in your headphones, check out Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. 

How Many Black People Were in the Regency Aristocracy, Anyway?

Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in Netflix’s Bridgerton series.

With the success of Netflix’s Bridgerton — it’s quickly become the platform’s biggest original series ever — people naturally have questions about what that era actually looked like. For people who are used to homogenous (read: white) period dramas, Bridgerton was probably more than a little shocking. The showrunners set out to create a diverse cast and hired Black actors and actresses for some of the show’s major roles, like Queen Charlotte (above) and, of course, the swoon-worthy Duke of Hastings.

Cue the thinly-veiled outrage. It’s not that we don’t want to see Black people in period dramas, it’s just…that…it’s not period accurate! There we go.

People protesting diversity in the name of historical accuracy have a bit of a rude awakening in store. In honor of Black History Month, our episode on race and the Regency, and our latest episode on Regency-era class, let’s take a look at the Black upper-class in Britain during Jane Austen’s time.

Black Population in England

First, let’s make it clear — there were Black people in England before World War II. There were Africans in Britain before the people we know today as the English made it there.

Most people are familiar with Hadrian’s Wall, a relic of the Roman Empire. What you might not know is that “a division of Moors” from North Africa helped to guard it in the 3rd century AD. They were listed in an official Roman register, giving us strong historical proof that Black people were in England approximately…1200 years before most people believe Black British history begins.

As you fast forward through the years, you have Black people represented in famous plays like Othello, serving in the British Navy, and entering the public sphere as writers. The population was small, but it was present. By the Regency Era, the time period in which Bridgerton is set and when Jane Austen wrote most of her novels, Black people were a normal part of British life.

Most sources agree that there were about 20,000 Black people living in England at this time, most of them concentrated in industrial areas or port cities.

Black Representation in the Aristocracy

Here is where Bridgerton did take some historical liberties — the majority of the Black population in England at this time was working class. To have a TV show without the specter of racism lurking just out of frame, the writers had to create an alternate universe where racism didn’t affect our heroes’ storylines.

It let the show still be soapy and fun without getting too serious, and people of color could just enjoy seeing themselves on screen without race-related stress. It’s nice to watch people who look like you dealing with petty problems like who’s in love with who and not “my love interest doesn’t think I’m fully human.”

However, even though the real-life “Ton” was not a magically accepting and diverse place, there were actually Black people dotted throughout Britain’s upper-class.

One of the most famous examples is Dido Belle, whose story was most recently adapted for the big screen by Amma Asante in 2013’s Belle. She was born into slavery to an African woman and an English gentleman, Sir John Lindsay. However, she was raised with her cousin in the house of Lord Mansfield, a judge whose decisions helped move the country closer to abolishing slavery.

Later in the century, in the Victorian Era, Sara Forbes Bonetta was born a Yoruba princess, was sold into slavery, and through a wild sequence of events ended up sent to England, where she met the queen. Queen Victoria was so impressed with her that she raised her as her goddaughter. When Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Alice was married, Sara was there as a guest.

Sara Forbes Bonetta in 1862. Image via Wikimedia Commons

And at the highest level, there’s been some debate over whether or not Queen Charlotte herself had enough African ancestry to be considered Black.

A small number of free Black families owned property and were wealthy enough to send their children overseas to receive an education. While Bridgerton's representation of the aristocracy might be a fantasy, the idea of Black people in the upper-crust of historical British society is not.

Why Didn’t I Learn This in School?

Racism.

But if you want to keep learning, check out Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain by Peter Fryer or Black London: Life Before Emancipation by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, which is available for free from Dartmouth.

If reading a book isn’t in the cards for you right now, this BBC video is a great primer under eight minutes.

Final Takeaways

Casting Black people in a period drama isn’t a symptom of PC culture, it’s not necessarily historical revisionism — it’s actually getting closer to how the past truly looked. At the same time, fans of color finally get to see themselves represented on screen in a way that feels affirming instead of demeaning.

Black history hasn’t been taught as exhaustively as it deserves to be, but with shows like Bridgerton, Sanditon, and other period pieces that have decided to get creative with casting, more people are excited to start learning. That’s a win, no matter how you look at it.

Craving more content like this? Subscribe to Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins. New episodes are released every other Wednesday.