Director Ridley Scott said he wouldn't have been able to secure financing for his upcoming Biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings, had he cast unknown Egyptians to play lead roles.
Scott faced intense scrutiny after it was announced the Welsh Christian Bale would play Moses and Australian Joel Edgerton would play Rhamses. Both actors are white, but both roles are Egyptian.
The director told Variety his casting choices were necessary to get the funding it took to film the movie.
"I can't mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such," Scott said. "I'm just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn't even come up."
The 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report released earlier this year found that 11 percent of lead acting roles went to an ethnic minority actor, and ethnic minority actors made up 10 percent of all film roles.
The movie is a reinterpretation of the biblical story of Moses. According to the Old Testament Book of Exodus, Moses was born into slavery and adopted by chance into the Egyptian royal family. He later rebelled against his adoptive brother, the Pharaoh Rameses, and led hundreds of thousands of Israelite slaves to freedom by parting the Red Sea. After their escape, Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments on the top of Mount Sinai, and spent the rest of his life seeking the Promised Land.