Wonka: Why Hugh Grant Playing Oompa Loompa Angers Dwarf Actor

While "Game of Thrones" star Peter Dinklage has lobbied against the stereotypical casting of people with dwarfism in movies, "Willow" series actor George Coppen is taking exception to how studios are seemingly bypassing actors of smaller statures.

Coppen, who played a Newlyn villager in the "Willow" sequel series on Disney+ in early 2023, told the BBC that he's upset Hugh Grant, who stands 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall, is featured in the upcoming Warner Bros. film "Wonka" as an Oompa Loompa instead of a dwarf actor.

The actor told the BBC that he was initially concerned by how James Nesbitt — who is 5 feet 11 1/2 inches tall — was cast to play the dwarf character Bofur for all three films in director Peter Jackson's adaptation of "The Hobbit." Now, with the casting of Grant as an Oompa Loompa in "Wonka," Coppen felt compelled to speak out.

"A lot of actors [with dwarfism] feel like we are being pushed out of the industry we love," Coppen told the BBC. "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. One door is being closed but they have forgotten to open the next one."

Coppen's criticism of Grant's casting in "Wonka" comes after the recent release of the film's first trailer. "They've enlarged his head, so his head looks bigger. [I thought,] ”What the hell have you done to him?'" Coppen told the broadcaster.

Unless some actors with dwarfism turn up as other Oompa Loompa characters in "Wonka" when the film is released in December 2023, it will mark the first film adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic tale — which stars Timothée Chalamet in the title role — to not feature a little person in the role of an Oompa Loompa.

In 1971's "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," several actors with dwarfism including Malcolm Dixon, George Claydon, and Angelo Muscat played Oompa Loompas opposite Gene Wilder's title character. Then, in 2005, Deep Roy — through the crafty use of visual effects — played all of the Oompa Loompas opposite Johnny Depp's iteration of Wonka in director Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Like Hugh Grant's Oompa Loompa in "Wonka," the group working in the chocolate factory for Wilder's version in 1971 has orange skin and green hair. The presentation of the characters in the original "Willy Wonka" film marked a huge departure from the disturbing past of the Oompa Loompas in Dahl's 1964 book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," where the author wrote that Wonka imported members of a Pygmy tribe from "the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before."

Accusations of racism from advocacy groups like the NAACP and some of Dahl's fellow authors followed the release of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and the writer eventually realized the damaging error of his ways, changing the text in later editions of the book.

Peter Dinklage had strong words about the upcoming live-action Disney remake of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" on January 24, 2022, when he told WTF podcaster Marc Maron how he was baffled by Walt Disney Pictures' casting decisions. On one hand, Dinklage praised the inclusion of Rachel Zegler as Snow White but expressed anger over the idea of casting dwarf actors as her companions.

"They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you're still telling the story of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.' Take a step back and look at what you're doing there," Dinklage told Maron. "It makes no sense to me because you're progressive in one way and you're still making that f***ing backward story about seven dwarves living in a cave."

Disney took Dinklage's "Snow White" comments to heart the next day and pledged to come up with a different approach to casting the title character's seven guardians. When that solution was revealed through the publication of photos from the set in mid-July 2023, Disney's Snow White Live-Action remake casting infuriated fans.

The studio first denied — but eventually confirmed — the authenticity of the photos, saying they were unauthorized shots from the set. As it turns, out, the people featured in the photos were stand-ins for Snow White and the titular seven characters — one of which was an actor with dwarfism — and the others were of various heights. The other major difference was that instead of the seven characters being Caucasian dwarfs, the new group was a diverse mix of male and female characters who were either white or people of color.