Netflix yesterday dropped the news about adding four more cast members to their upcoming, much anticipated movie ‘The Gray Man’. The latest cast that was introduced has Jessica Henwick, Wagner Moura, Julia Butters and our beloved Indian superstar Dhanush. This will be Dhanush’s second international project after “The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir”. Indian fans are really happy about the development, which can be seen all over twitter ever since the news dropped. Messages and tweets have been flooding Twitter and people are congratulating him on this new journey.
The addition of an Indian star in an International movie has always been a proud moment for every Indian. And over the years, the amount of those proud moments have increased tremendously, with more Indian actors working in big budget movies and being part of productions that have legendary directors and producers. Recently, this moment of pride was brought in by Dimple Kapadia as she played a major role in Christopher Nolan’s latest “Tenet”.
The Gray Man is derived from the bestselling novel of the same name. As it is an international spy thriller, it includes lots of organisations; and in one of those organisations, there is a Sri Lankan intelligence agency that has been mentioned in the book. Now it will be interesting to see if Dhanush is introduced as a character from that organisation or he is given an identity that will connect him to his Indian roots, or at least, South Asian roots.
Normally, in movies that have been adapted from books, there has always been a trend of whitewashing the characters, but in recent times this notion has changed. Asians are being appreciated and pulled in scenes that require pure Asians in the given roles. Russo Brothers, who has already worked with a South Asian cast in “Extraction” without whitewashing anything or any character seems like they appreciate the diversity. And it seems Dhanush’s role in The Gray Man will be of someone who belongs to this part of the globe or else it would be an unfair game when it comes to assigning roles.