Fisher Stevens, a very white guy, now regrets playing an Indian character in Short Circuit
Fisher Stevens’ character in Short Circuit wasn’t always supposed to be an Indian man. Ben was actually supposed to be a white grad student, but director John Badham decided that it’d be better to have the character be Indian. But in a move that makes absolutely no sense, instead of recasting the role to be played by an Indian actor, Badham kept Stevens in the role, and he donned brownface. Production went above and beyond to make Stevens look Indian, to the point where he looks and sounds unrecognizable, and actually passes as Asian. In fact, Aziz Ansari wrote in a New York Times piece from 2015 that before learning the actor is white, he considered Stevens to be one of the few representations of Indian men in film growing up. He noted his surprise when he found out that the character he’d looked up to was actually a white guy, who had to “sit every morning in a makeup chair and get painted an ‘Indian color’ before going on set and doing his ‘Indian voice.’” Ansari interviewed Stevens, who ultimately admitted that yes, an Indian man obviously should’ve been cast in the role.
