Doctor Strange Star Tilda Swinton Addresses White-Washing Backlash for Ancient One Casting

In the Marvel Comics mythos, the Ancient One, the mentor to Doctor Stephen Strange, is a Tibetan man. In live-action, however, the character has been played by Tilda Swinton, a white actor that’s appeared as the character in both Doctor Strange and Avengers: Endgame. Back in May, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige said in an interview he regretted white-washing the role by casting Swinton as the character. Now, the actor herself is speaking out on the situation, praising Feige for coming forward and expressing regret.

In a new profile by Variety, the actor describes the situation as a “hot, sticky, gnarly moment,” before suggesting it was a moment the industry needed to move forward.

“I remember at the time having a question mark in my own mind, and being attendant to the public response to the idea that a Scottish woman will be playing this character, and being aware that there was no resistance at all — there was widespread welcome — which shifted at a certain point, for very good reasons with which I had an enormous amount of sympathy,” Swinton tells the trade.

Feige’s comments came in an interview with Men’s Health promoting Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the first movie from Marvel Studios that will feature an Asian character as the film’s title character.

“We thought we were being so smart, and so cutting-edge,” Kevin Feige said in an interview with the magazine before adding, “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.”

Unless Swinton’s a surprise role in Marve’s What If…? or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the character doesn’t have any other potential appearances on the horizon.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set for release on March 25, 2022 while Doctor Strange is streaming on Disney+ now. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

What other characters do you think could pop up in Multiverse of Madness? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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