Jon Watts provided some interesting context on the diversity in his upcoming superhero film.

Diversity has been become a major topic in Hollywood, particularly in recent years. Many filmmakers have been making attempts to include actors from various backgrounds in their films. One of these filmmakers is Jon Watts, who has assembled quite a diverse cast for Spider-Man: Homecoming.

In a set interview with ScreenRant, Watts explained that this was part of his original pitch, and he wanted it to truly reflect what a high school in modern-day New York looks like:

“That was a big part of my pitch. The very first thing I made was a look book of what I wanted the world to look like, and what the kids should look like and the high school should look like. I lived in New York for thirteen years, and it should look like a school in New York, it shouldn’t look like a school in the Midwest in the 50’s. So, I pulled a bunch of pictures of kids and documentary photos of kids in schools, and that was part of my pitch and everyone was really into that and followed through with the casting, which is so, so cool, I love the kids.”

Watts also discussed how he used colorblind casting, and constructed the roles around the actors instead of trying to get them to fit into pre-made characters:

“It was colorblind initially, because it was everyone, like any kid ever. We just put them on tape, and sometimes it was, there were some situations where a kid was just great and there wasn’t a specific role for them but because it’s a high school, we can have so many kids, and it was an opportunity to be like ‘Well this kid is great, we don’t have a specific role for them, but maybe we should create a small role for them or think of a way to incorporate them in some other capacity.’ When you’re developing the story and the script while you’re casting, you can keep an open mind to look for the best kids. That’s what they did, I think I remember reading that’s how Judd Apatow did Freaks and Geeks, where they just sort of looked for kids that were interesting and then shaped the roles around them. A great thing about kids is they’re just themselves and can’t help it a lot of the times. So to be able to craft roles around these kids is better than trying to force someone into a preconceived role.”

I think we can all agree that we want to expand diversity in Hollywood, and this is definitely a great way to do so. Casting the actors and building their parts around them could make the characters feel more natural and believable, which in turn, could help to make this depiction of high school feel more authentic.

Spider-Man: Homecoming debuts in theaters on July 7, 2017.