As the Doctor Strange press tour continues ahead of the Marvel Studios film’s November 4 release, questions are bound to come up again and again about Tilda Swinton playing the Ancient One. In the original Marvel comic, the character is a Tibetan man, a mystic who mentors Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Fans collectively scratched their heads when Swinton’s casting was first announced—even though casting white actors in roles originally occupied by non-white characters happens frequently in Hollywood. They were hardly mollified when the movie’s makers explained that in Doctor Strange, the character will be Celtic rather than Tibetan.

At a press stop in Hong Kong, director Scott Derrickson addressed the character change, saying the new Ancient One was written specifically for Swinton and was always going to be of Celtic origin. It was too risky to bring that particular Tibetan character to life, he explained: “The Ancient One in the comics is a very old American stereotype of what Eastern characters and people are like, and I felt very strongly that we need to avoid those stereotypes at all costs,” he said.

His sentiment echoes remarks previously made by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who said this to Entertainment Weekly last December: “I think if you look at some of the early incarnations of the Ancient One in the comics, they are what we would consider today to be quite, sort of, stereotypical. They don’t hold up to what would work today.”

A Marvel spokesperson also gave this explanation this past April: “The Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film the embodiment is Celtic.”

Though the response may not quite satisfy fans wishing to see a famous Asian character on the big screen, these explanations are still a little more understandable than screenwriter C. Robert Cargill’s take. This past April, his response, recorded on a podcast, began similarly to Derrickson’s, before turning into a political tangent: “The Ancient One was a racist stereotype who comes from a region of the world that is in a very weird political place. He originates from Tibet, so if you acknowledge that Tibet is a place and that he’s Tibetan, you risk alienating one billion people who think that that’s bullshit and risk the Chinese government going, ‘Hey, you know one of the biggest film-watching countries in the world? We’re not going to show your movie because you decided to get political.’”

Yeah . . . not everyone bought that particular line of reasoning, and Cargill himself eventually walked back his comments, saying he had “no place in speaking” about the casting of the film. Swinton herself recently spoke about the casting, saying she welcomes voices urging diversity in film while still defending her role: “There may be some people who do not like these changes, but I am hopeful that when they see the film itself they may understand why these particular balances were struck.”

One character, quite a few interpretations. We’ll likely hear about a few more of them before the film comes out in November.