Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.
Topics: TV and Film
Stewart Perrie
The new film about Willy Wonka is being harshly criticised before it's even been released.
The trailer for Wonka, which stars Timothée Chalamet as the enigmatic and eccentric owner of the legendary chocolate brand, dropped two weeks ago and everyone got pretty excited.
There has been a lot of hype leading up to the film considering it's a fresh take on the character who is beloved around the world.
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However, one person was upset when they saw a different role in the teaser.
Hugh Grant has been cast as an Oompa Loompa in the upcoming flick and you get to see a brief interaction between him and Wonka in the trailer.
His character is based on a fictional being that is described as 20 inches tall, according to Warner Bros.
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Grant's Oompa Loompa appears in a glass jar and Chalamet's Wonka asks whether he's the 'funny little man who’s been following me?'
The short, orange character replies: “I will have you know that I am a perfectly respectful size for an Oompa-Loompa.”
But an actor with dwarfism has hit out at the decision give Hugh Grant the role.
George Coppen told the BBC that the film should have cast performers like him.
“A lot of actors [with dwarfism] feel like we are being pushed out of the industry we love," he said.
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"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 has appeared in projects like Willow, Artemis Fowl and The School for Good and Evil.
The BBC reports that the 26-year-old is following in the footsteps of his father, Willie Coppen, who got into acting when he saw a casting call for actors to play Ewoks in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
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George has also hit out at the way Grant's body has been altered in Wonka.
"They've enlarged his head so his head looks bigger. [I thought] what the hell have you done to him?" George said to the BBC.
In the past film iterations of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Oompa Loompas have been played by actors with dwarfism.
George wants to know what has suddenly changed with this latest one.
Wonka is a prequel to Dahl's legendary story and reveals how the iconic chocolate maker came to be.
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The film is due to be released on December 13 this year.
LADbible has reached out to Warner Bros. for comment.