The How to Train Your Dragon director Dean DeBlois responds to the Astrid casting backlash. In adapting the 2010 DreamWorks film to live-action, the team has kept a lot the same, while also making some notable changes. Familiar elements include the character design for the lovable dragon, Toothless, as well as the Stoick actor, who remains Gerard Butler. Astrid’s casting, however, is shifted from the original version of her. In the animated movie, she is a White woman with blonde hair, but in the live-action version, she is played by Nico Parker, who is of mixed race.

In a roundtable interview for the How to Train Your Dragon preview event attended by ScreenRant, director DeBlois spoke about Astrid’s casting. The director explained that Parker “could actually play” the character “with confidence.” He pointed out that “not everyone needs to be white in this community” because it is “an expanded mythology.” In addition, DeBlois hinted at more details about Astrid’s backstory that wasn’t in the first movie and the extended dragon lore. Check out his full response below:

Astrid was one of those situations where, in the first movie, it felt like she was pretty thin, but she potentially had more [depth]. This was a chance to just get in there [and] to better understand why she’s got such an acrimonious relationship with Hiccup in the beginning. She’s worked really hard for the attention that she gets.

With Stoick, she’s the kid he would have loved to have had, but he ended up with Hiccup. Hiccup is never focused on this destiny. His mind goes elsewhere. He has the benefit of privilege. He’s the son of the chief, and so he coasts by, and it’s a great dynamic because Astrid can really call him out on that. In her mind, she’s going to be chief one day. She’s been really focused and working hard to get there, and she has to give up a lot to fall from grace with Hiccup. It excited me in that way. It’s a better character to watch.

Then we found Nico Parker, who could actually play all of that with confidence. People who are online who are complaining she’s not blonde enough or not white enough, just wait till they see the performance. The performance tells me [everything I need to know]. It’s also an expanded mythology, so not everyone needs to be white in this community. They are a gathering of warriors from all of these different places, under the same Viking banner.

It sort of broadens the world, and it gives them a real purpose for why they’re on this island in the first place. They’re now generations in, they’ve been mixing it all in. All that sort of nonsense [surrounding the diverse casting], I just discount it. They don’t know what they don’t know. Once you see the movie, the things answer themselves.

[…]

The truth is, the Vikings did travel far and wide. They were on the Silk Road. They’re in the Far East. They’re in North Africa. They even had a name for North Africa, which is called Bláland. They interacted with all of these cultures and traded with all of these cultures. So it makes sense. [In this world[, there are dragons. It’s the truth. Dragons are a part of so many cultures that, in my mind, if they were a menace to all these cultures, that could be sort of the basis of them coming together for the purpose of wiping the dragons out.

Then it gives a sense of urgency and purpose to the start of the story in Berk. In generations, they haven’t even found the nest, never mind actually killing off all the dragons. They’re being beaten at their own game. It puts Stoick under a lot of pressure, and it makes Hiccup’s screw-ups more consequential. It ratcheted up the tension.

What This Means For How To Train Your Dragon

How To Train Your Dragon Is An Expanded Mythology, Not A Historical Fact

In defending Parker’s casting as Astrid, DeBlois brings out one clear point; this is a fantasy world. The detractors of the How to Train Your Dragon live-action casting are too focused on the “historical accuracy” of the Viking community, which they believe was predominantly white. However, the movies are historically inspired but already make obvious departures from the truth by living in a world that includes dragons. As such, DeBlois and his team did not pay attention to Astrid’s race when deciding who was best fit for the role.

While Astrid’s race should not matter at all in this fantasy world, it is also interesting to hear DeBlois talk about how her non-white race could be historically based. This is due to the Vikings traveling via the Silk Road, which expanded to places including North Africa. Because “dragons are a part of so many cultures,” it could make some sense why Astrid might be a non-white member of Berk who is still involved in the dragon lore.

Our Take On The Astrid Casting Backlash

This Echoes Backlash For Other Live-Action Films

The resistance to a non-White person playing Astrid is unfortunately reflective of how audiences often treat casting, which changes the race of a traditionally White character. There was similar vitriol when Halle Bailey, a young Black woman, was cast as the new Little Mermaid in the 2023 live-action version despite her being a complete fantasy, as she was a mermaid. With more of this race-blind or race-flexible casting being done in major movies like How to Train Your Dragon, hopefully, some of this race-fueled casting resistance will die down over the years as people get more accustomed to flexible casting.