During the discussion, Jeffrey Wright went on to say that when the film’s studio and distributors — Universal Studios, Good Machine Productions, and USA Films, respectively — were unsure of how to market a film with such difficult subject matter, they sort of just gave up on giving it any publicity whatsoever. Not only that, but Wright recalled that he was asked to dub over the vital word from his pivotal line for what he said the studio called the “airplane version of the dialogue” (a clean one). Wright refused.
“I said, ‘Nah. That’s not happening,'” Wright revealed. And they found some other actor to come in and do that one word, apparently, so that the airplane folk would be comfy in the darkness of their own ignorance around the language of race.” The identity of that other actor isn’t revealed in the roundtable, but it’s absolutely notable that Wright stuck to his principles and chose not to dub over the line himself, especially since he was not an established star. One thing feels certain, though: Wright has such a distinctive voice that unless the actor who stepped in is an incredible impressionist, the “airplane version” probably sounds just a little bit off.
