To all my fans of The Shawshank Redemption....Red was written as a white character and Andy Dufresne was supposed to be fat and dumpy.... Shawshank ended up great.
First, I am kinda stumped by this statement. I guess I am one of those people who was confused by the casting choice despite loving Idris Elba and still wanting to give the film a chance. But the only person I thought would be ideal casting choice among today's crop of actors would of been someone like Timothy Olyphant, but that's probably just because of my love for his work in Deadwood and Justified.
Second, as a writer myself (screenplays), I am usually not one to question how anyone envisions their own characters. Recently in my writing group a friend was shocked that the main character of my current sci-fi script was always intended to be African American. I was surprised that he envisioned the character as just some dark skinned 'other' or 'mixed' race. I finally had to show him concept art I had made several years ago to prove it to him. He just couldn't shake the way he envisioned the character in his mind despite the way I even described him. Part of writing compelling characters is being clever with your descriptions and letting actions speak louder. If I were to describe the character blatantly as "30, African American" then I am shooting myself in the foot because I forcibly told a potential producer that the lead can only be that race.
Anyways, the reason I am confused that Sai King would make this statement to his fans, is that I didn't really remember anything in Rita Hayworth reading this way. I am fairly certain that Red narrates the whole thing, so I don't remember him really describing himself at all. I get that Redding surname could be Anglo-saxon descent, but it could've also been a given name carried over from slavery era relatives. I also don't see any references of Red describing himself as 'white.' I do see a lot of misinformation on the internet claiming he was a 'ginger-haired mick.' Maybe I am missing something, but considering how descriptive Sai King usually is with everything in his stories, and especially good with painting a picture of his characters, I am pretty sure I would not have missed that detail. If anyone knows what page in the story this is on, please share. Probably will need to re-read it, but I have even done a search on my Kindle version. Nope. Not one single line of anyone referring to themselves or to Red as a ginger-haired mick. In fact, the only reference in the entire book (Different Seasons) to anyone possibly being a Ginger, is in The Breathing Method.
Furthermore, the way he describes Andy is hardly "fat and dumpy" to me at all:
"When Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, he was thirty years old. He was a short, neat little man with sandy hair and small, clever hands. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. His fingernails were always clipped, and they were always clean."
"As it turned out, it was fortunate that Norton got someone of Andy’s approximate height and build to go in there; if they had sent a big-assed fellow—as most prison guards seem to be—the guy would have stuck in there as sure as God made green grass... and he might be there still."
Can someone please tell me what I am missing in this description, because I do not envision this guy as "fat and dumpy" at all.
Obviously, Sai King knows what was in his own mind better than I would, but part of me feels that he is just politely saying what he needs to in support of Hollywood's decision to cast who they wanted, rather than who he originally envisioned for the DT.
I think this casting is also more difficult to justify to people because unlike a lot of his other books and short stories, the DT books actually have a lot of artwork in them and even a comic book series that make it very clear who Roland is and what he was intended to look like. If SK had intended Roland to be any other race, I am sure he would have communicated that to Michael Whelan and all the other artists that were involved over the years with the many illustrations of the characters in the DT universe.
Regardless, I hope the films turn out really good. I think Idris is an awesome actor and worthy of going up against McConaughey. Definitely will try to keep an open mind, but I am inclined to believe that this will not be "The" definitive adaption most of us would have wanted to see.