BY DANIEL REYNOLDS
FEBRUARY 25 2015
James, who was also present at the Outfest event, said the issue of casting a trans actor is not so cut and dry as people make it out to be.
“There are business realities that force the industry to make certain kinds of decisions that aren’t necessarily in our best interest as a community,” she told The Advocate. “I understand from both sides of it. As a producer, I see why you want to get the best, and biggest, and most experienced person you can for a film, especially if you’ve worked on it for years and years and have investors who you want to pay back. But on the other hand, the other part of me wishes that there were more kinds of those opportunities for trans actors.”
“It’s complicated,” she continued. “It’s not as easy as people outside the industry want to think it is. In a perfect world, we would have trans actors playing those roles, but we don’t live in that world, and there are a lot of us working hard to try and change that. But it’s going to take time, just like it did with gay and lesbian actors. We’re about 30 years behind them.”