Question: I don't have anything against Rosario Dawson, but I wonder why Daphne Rubin-Vega wasn't offered or didn't take the part of Mimi in the movie version of Rent, especially when so many of the other original Broadway cast members are reprising their roles.
Answer: In fact, all but two of Rent's original cast members are reprising their roles in the movie, which you can spin for good or for bad. On the one hand, their performances are the defining interpretations of those roles, and given that Rent is such a recent work, every subsequent performer must make a conscious choice to either work within or actively go against the interpretations those original actors established. (By contrast, no one today is oppressed by the way Hamlet was originally played.) Drawing on the original cast ensures that the essence of the show's appeal will get carried over to the fil
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