Kevin Feige Regrets Whitewashing The Ancient One in Doctor Strange: 'It Was a Wake-Up Call'

After Tilda Swinton was announced to be playing The Ancient One in 2016's Doctor Strange, the production came under fire for casting a white actress as a character that has been historically portrayed as an Asian male. Though Marvel Studios offered a justification for Swinton's casting at the time, Kevin Feige has now stated that he regrets the decision.

"We thought we were being so smart, and so cutting-edge," Feige told Men's Health in a cover story about Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu. "We're not going to do the cliché of the wizened, old, wise Asian man. But it was a wake-up call to say, ‘Well, wait a minute, is there any other way to figure it out? Is there any other way to both not fall into the cliché and cast an Asian actor?’ And the answer to that, of course, is yes.”

In his comments, Feige cites Marvel Studios' stance at the time. Fearing that casting an Asian actor would play into negative stereotypes, the production decided to erase The Ancient One's Asianness entirely.

“We talked about Asian actors who could do it... but when I envisioned that character being played by an Asian actress, it was a straight-up Dragon Lady," director Scott Derrickson stated in 2016 in response to the backlash. "I know the history of cinema and the portrayal of the Dragon Lady in Anna May Wong films, and the continued stereotype throughout film history and even more in television... I really felt like I was going to be contributing to a bad stereotype.”

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness Cast

Marvel Studios' official statement at the time echoed Derrickson's sentiments, explaining the decision to cast Swinton as a matter of reinventing The Ancient One.

"The Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film the embodiment is Celtic," Marvel wrote in its official statement.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will be Marvel Studios' first Asian-led feature film. The film stars Liu as Shang-Chi and Tony Leung as Wenwu, who many fans theorize will be the MCU's version of the Mandarin after Ben Kingsley's portrayal of the character in Iron Man 3 turned out to be a red herring.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

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