Actor Says Disney Is ‘Browning Up’ White Extras for Live-Action Aladdin

Photo: Disney

Disney’s live-action Aladdin (and hot Jafar) is still a ways off, but the drama is already starting to brew around the Guy Ritchie film. According to the Sunday Times, actors say Disney has been tanning white actors to play extras in Agrabah, the movie’s fictional Middle Eastern city. Actor Kaushal Odedra told the paper that he was on set working as stand-in for a lead actor during filming in September, and saw a line of 20 “very fair-skinned” actors waiting to be heavily tanned. When Odedra asked another man on set about the line of white actors, they both decided against complaining: “I asked a Saudi cast member what he made of having these extras being tanned so heavily and he said it’s unfortunate,” Odedra said, “but this is how the industry works, and there’s no point complaining about it since it isn’t going to change.”

Guy Ritchie declined to comment to the Times, and Disney praised the diversity on set. “This is the most diverse cast ever assembled for a Disney live action production,” the studio said. “More than 400 of the 500 background performers were Indian, Middle Eastern, African, Mediterranean and Asian.”