People with dwarfism aren’t happy about Hugh Grant’s upcoming Oompa-Loompa role

By Amarachi Orie, CNN

(CNN) — Some people with dwarfism have criticized the casting of British actor Hugh Grant in the role of an Oompa-Loompa in the upcoming film “Wonka,” saying that work is being “taken” from them.

Directed by Paul King and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, “Wonka” is a prequel to Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and explores the making of Willy Wonka as a magician, inventor and chocolate-maker. (Warner Bros. and CNN are both units of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

The story will focus on Wonka and how he met the Oompa-Loompas on one of his earliest adventures, according to IMDb.

George Coppen, an actor with dwarfism, said in an Instagram post the day after the official trailer was released earlier this month: “So I was watching the new Wonka trailer and I thought it looked pretty good until the very end where Hugh Grant appears as an oompa loompa. Why?”

Dahl’s book was first adapted for the screen in 1971 and the movie was then remade by director Tim Burton in 2005 with Johnny Depp in the lead role. In both these films, the Oompa-Loompas, who work in the chocolate factory, were portrayed by actors with dwarfism.

However, in the trailer for “Wonka,” which is expected to be released in December, Grant who is more than 5’10 in height, according to IMDb, appears as a nattily dressed orange-skinned, green-haired Oompa-Loompa who is trapped in a glass jar.

When Wonka (played by “Dune” star Timothée Chalamet) meets him, he says: “So you’re the funny little man who’s been following me.”

“I will have you know that I am a perfectly respectable size for an Oompa-Loompa,” responds the Ooompa-Loompa before tapping on the glass. In the scene, he goes on to attempt to refresh Wonka’s memory of what an Oompa-Loompa is by playing a flute and dancing.

A spokesperson for Warner Bros. Pictures told CNN that Grant’s character is intended to be about 20 inches tall.

“In the previous two films all the oompa loompas have been played by dwarves but this time round they have decided to take work away from us,” Coppen continued.

The actor acknowledged that he does not know if there are other Oompa-Loompas in the film or who will be playing them if there are.

However, he went on to say, “Now some people will say that roles like this are demeaning and we should be playing more ‘normal’ roles which is completely true but we aren’t getting offered those roles so they have kind of shut one door for us without opening the other one. So we are stuck in the middle unable to do anything.”

He added that actors with dwarfism should “at least” be given the option to play such roles, even if they are not a fan of them, “instead of just shutting us out.”

“This isn’t a post saying I’m not happy so I won’t see it but a lot of people wouldn’t realise what something like this means to people like me,” he continued.

Comedian Brad Williams, who, like Coppen, has achondroplasia, took to Twitter to express his unease, writing: “Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa? I’m really torn about this. One part of me is like ‘hey, we are more than just elves, leprechauns, and Oompa Loompas,’ but then this comes out and I want to scream ‘How dare they not cast a dwarf as the Oompa Loompa!’”

He ended his tweet with the hashtag #NotMyWonka.

Speaking on TalkTV earlier this month, American wrestler Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl said the filmmakers were “using CGI and spending extra money on funding for these movies when we could just cast dwarfs in that role.” He went on the question why such jobs were being “taken” away from his community.

Upon the release of the trailer, director King said he was looking for a star to play one of Wonka’s “incredibly sarcastic and judgemental and cruel” workers and landed on Grant, “the funniest, most sarcastic s— that I’ve met.”

However, in an interview with the BBC released on Wednesday, Coppen added that in response to seeing Grant in the role, “They’ve enlarged his head so his head looks bigger,” adding that he thought, “what the hell have you done to him?”

The actor said that a lot of actors with dwarfism “feel like we are being pushed out of the industry we love.”

CNN has reached out to Grant’s representatives for comment.

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