Director Benh Zeitlin discusses his journey to Neverland.
Then comes our hero, Peter.
Hes passive-aggressive to women (the animated film features Peter saying girls talk too much).
Credit: Searchlight Pictures
He treats Native Americans as animals, orred men.And, well, hes always white.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I read that you auditioned upward of 1,500 kids before you chose Yashua.
[I had] this realization as I was scouting these landscapes.
Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures
Knowing the narrative of Peter, hes lived outside for hundreds of years.
Thats often how his world is realized.
Yashua lived in a Rastafari camp in Antigua.
A lot of places you see in the film are their playground.
He just inherently understood how to perform.
Does that bother you, even now withWendy?Obviously, youre aware of it.
Theres a current in the world that people should just tell stories about themselves.
These are stories about people that are radically different from me.
Theres a long and shameful history of white filmmakers misrepresenting women and misrepresenting people of color in film.
I think its a great thing that there is a level of scrutiny that exists.
Its significant that this will be the first Peter Pan of color in a major movie release.
Radically dismantling the history of the story was a huge reason why we wanted to tell it.
His character and the story has been so important to me.
But you look back at iterations of it and theyre wildly sexist.
Theyre wildly racist, the way they portrayed Native Americans, usually.
In this movie, the physical manifestation of Mother is a giant deep-sea fish that appears incredibly realistic.
Your movies have always been about this magic realism.
Theres movies where kids are in the rain forest, and the kid probably never went outside.
Theres a real incredible loss to me happening in the world.
Weve lost these artisans.
Pretty much everything filters through somebody sitting down at their laptop.
