Sarah Silverman Voices Frustration With Typecasting of Jewish Actresses in Hollywood
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Sarah Silverman. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Jewish comedian and actress Sarah Silverman asserted in an interview on Tuesday that Jewish actresses were often typecast in Hollywood and rarely hired to take on heroic roles, even if the characters were Jewish.
During a guest appearance on “The Howard Stern Show,” the best-selling author discussed the debut of “The Sarah Silverman Podcast” in September and one particular episode that interested Stern, which was called “Jewy Actors.”
“The parts I get to play, you’re either a sassy friend of the main character … or you’re this c–ty girlfriend before the guy realizes what love really can be, or you’re that guy’s book agent or scumbag executive,” Silverman said.
“Actors are actors and they should play all different parts, 100 percent. Let me make that clear,” Silverman elaborated. But, she added, “if there is a role that’s a Jewish woman… but she is courageous, or she deserves love, or has bravery or is altruistic in any way, she’s played by a non-Jew. I wouldn’t care one time, two times, 11 times, but every time?!”
She then cited a number of Hollywood projects as examples, including the movie about Jewish US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September.
“They finally make ‘RBG’ the movie and it’s a British woman, Felicity Jones. Mrs. Maisel [played by Rachel Brosnahan] — God bless her, she’s brilliant — not Jewish. Even in ‘Jojo Rabbit,’ which I loved, nobody was Jewish. The Jew in the wall wasn’t even Jewish. It was some actress named McKenzie!” Silverman continued. “Is it the biggest injustice in the world? No, but I’m noticing it.”
“It’s like when they cast someone who has two arms as a person with one arm, and [use] CGI. And then the one-armed actor is like, ‘Are you f—ing serious? Can I even get an audition?'” she told Stern.
Silverman, who will star in the upcoming romantic comedy “Marry Me,” also commented on actors who changed their names, saying: “Winona Ryder, if she kept her name Winona Horowitz, you think she would have starred in ‘The Age of Innocence’? No f—ing way!”
“I’m not saying nobody feels bad for us, but people really roll their eyes at Jews pointing out antisemitism at all, because they’re just over it,” she continued. “They saw the Holocaust movies, [they’re] like, ‘Next.'”
Watch the interview with Silverman below:
