Mehcad Brooks, who plays Jackson “Jax” Briggs in the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie, praised the diversity of the film's cast in a recent interview for The Root while pointing the first adaptation of the video game franchise was not so careful with the characters' origins. That’s because the 1995’s Mortal Kombat cast Christopher Lambert as Lord Raiden, while the God of Thunder is originally intended to be depicted as Japanese.
As Brooks pointed out, he has no intentions of diminishing the talent of any actor, underlying the issue has nothing to do with how well cast members can play their part. To Brooks, the issue comes from Hollywood in general, that for too long decided white actors should play characters that are not originally intended to be white. As Brooks puts it: "He [Lambert] is a fantastic actor, but what we’ve done in Hollywood for way too long is help America launder its own bigotry."
Brooks also expanded on how Mortal Kombat’s plot is about international cooperation. The bloody movie will adapt the games’ most gruesome details, but behind all the open guts and broken bones, there’s an actual story about the union of all humankind. As Brooks sees it, Mortal Kombat tells a narrative about "people all over the world who are different types of nationalities, speaking diversity where they're coming together, they're unifying for a larger purpose to save the world."
Brooks continued the interview by saying that beyond being a simple question of ethics, bringing diversity to Hollywood is also a way to ensure stories can be told from different perspectives. In his case, as a Black man, Brooks can bring a kind of experience to his works that his white colleagues cannot. In Brooks' words:
"Being black in America is a constant state of alchemy, of transmuting anger into purpose, of transmuting pain into passion, of transmuting sorrow into fuel. And I think that we were systemically repelled from having our voices be heard and expanded upon and I'm looking forward to those days being over and us telling stories, truly American stories from our own perspective."
The new Mortal Kombat’s Lord Raiden is played by Tadanobu Asano, a Japanese actor and musician. In addition to Brooks, the diverse cast also includes Hiroyuki Sanada, Joe Taslim, Ng Chin Han, Sisi Stringer, Daniel Nelson, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Max Huang, Ludi Lin and Lewis Tan.
Mortal Kombat is set to release in theaters and on HBO Max this Friday, April 23.