Last year, white supremacists launched a boycott of Thor when Idris Elba, a black actor whose parents are both African, was cast as the Norse deity Heimdall. The former star of The Wire responded: "We have a man [Thor] who has a flying hammer and wears horns on his head. And yet me being an actor of African descent playing a Norse god is unbelieveable?"
Now, Thor director Kenneth Branagh is weighing in too. Speaking with Empire for their Brit Director's Diary series, he says, "We were lucky to get him... If you're going to say the colour of his skin matters in a story like this, look at 50 years of Thor comics to see how many ways greats artists have bent alleged 'rules.' That whole 'controversy' was a surprising—and daft—moment."
Say what you wanna say about the casting but if you can't believe that an all-seeing, all-hearing Asgardian sentry of the bifröst bridge can't be of a different race, then your imagination needs some readjusting.
The superhero actioner, which features Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as his love interest, Jane, and Anthony Hopkins as the god Odin, bolts into theaters on May 6.
