Actor leaves Hollywood film role over criticism about ‘whitewashing’

Ed Skrein, a white British actor cast in the ‘Hellboy’ film as a character written as Japanese-American, has left the production so the role “can be cast appropriately”. In a statement, the actor wrote: “It is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people, and that to neglect this responsibility would continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the arts.”