Hugh Grant's Wonka casting renews a conversation about dwarfism in film

There’s a lot that’s eyebrow-raising in the new trailer for Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet, including the big reveal of Hugh Grant as a CGI Oompa Loompa. “So you’re the funny little man who’s been following me,” Wonka says after having presumably trapped Grant’s character in a glass jar. “I will have you know that I am a perfectly respectful size for an Oompa-Loompa,” Grant replies.

This casting is the cause of consternation for at least one little person in show business. George Coppen (The School For Good And Evil, Willow) told the BBC, “A lot of actors [with dwarfism] feel like we are being pushed out of the industry we love.” Coppen observed that the CGI design seems to be modeled after the effects of dwarfism: “They’ve enlarged his head so his head looks bigger. [I thought] what the hell have you done to him?”

Hollywood’s history with little people is typically problematic. One of the most famous casts of little people, in The Wizard Of Oz, were the subject of degrading rumors (of constant drinking and other lewd behavior) and were reportedly paid less than Dorothy’s dog Toto (per The Hollywood Reporter). In recent years, there’s been a greater awareness around stereotypical casting. Peter Dinklage, perhaps the most famous actor with dwarfism currently working, condemned Disney last year for engaging in negative stereotypes with its remake of Snow White. In response, Disney pledged to replace the seven dwarves with a diverse group of characters, not all of whom are little people.

While the instinct to move away from negative stereotypes may be well-intentioned, it also has the unintended side effect of pushing little people out of the industry. “A lot of people, myself included, argue that dwarfs should be offered everyday roles in dramas and soaps, but we aren’t getting offered those roles,” Coppen said in his BBC interview. “One door is being closed but they have forgotten to open the next one.”

Similarly, Terra Jolé, star of Little Women: LA, felt that Disney was too hasty in recalibrating its approach based on the criticism of one actor. She noted that there are adverse consequences of dwindling roles for little people. “Five years ago, there were constant commercial auditions,” she told The Wrap in 2022. “Because of equality, and voices stating that they weren’t okay with things like elf roles, or dwarf roles, or leprechaun roles, they’ve been eliminated. And not only are you not seeing a lot of little people in the acting industry anymore, but you’re not seeing productions being created to give little people an actual role, either.”

This is an issue for the community that has persisted for years. “Every time a part comes up for a little person, the competition is fierce because they just don’t write enough roles for us. It’s terrible. And the roles are not good at all,” lamented Bad Santa star Tony Cox to The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. “People don’t realize what we go through.”

Warwick Davis, the renowned actor from Willow and the Harry Potter movies who also co-founded a theatrical agency (Willow Management) that specializes in little people actors, also pondered the problem in the same THR piece. “There’s been a lot of talk recently about, is it right to shrink an average-size actor [with digital effects] to fulfill a little-person role? On one side, I could say, yeah, you should never do that, you’re taking work away from a short actor. Would you cast an average-size actor to pay a disabled character in a wheelchair?” He pondered. (This is something that happens quite frequently in Hollywood, although disability rights activists have taken up this issue in recent years as well.) “But at the same time, I understand that within the community of short actors, there might not be a performer with the right capabilities, the right attributes.”

Hugh Grant may be the performer everyone wants nowadays—in a long career of hits, he’s had recent franchise success in films like Paddington 2 and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves—but it cannot be argued that he has the right attributes to play Wonka’s Oompa Loompa. Sure, part of movie magic is that actors can transform into entirely new characters and creatures before our eyes. But if that creature is specifically designed to look similar to real people with dwarfism, as Coppen observed, it seems entirely inappropriate that the character should be played by someone who doesn’t have those attributes.