Actor Rachel True recalled how marginalized she felt throughout the auditioning, filming and promotional process of 1996's goth-cult-hit, The Craft.
True reflected on what it felt like then to be the sole Black actor on-set of The Craft, which she states led the studio and its marketing teams to hold her in quieter regards than her white co-stars and to unequal standards, in a recent interview with Yahoo! Entertainment.
True stated that she had to "fight" to audition for the part of Rochelle Zimmerman and was actively going up against her future co-stars Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney. True's role was originally written for a white actor, but that didn't deter her from auditioning.
"It’s a big movie in terms of my career, but it’s also a big movie for Black people out there," she said. "It’s one of the first teen movies that wasn’t a Black teen movie or a white teen movie."
After being cast, Rochelle's role was rewritten for True. Originally, Rochelle's character struggled with bulimia as a teenager but the writers decided to pivot her role's main struggle to be centered on the racism her character felt at a Catholic, majority-white high school.
Although the actor clarified that she didn't feel any sense of aggression on-set from her co-stars, she confirmed that the experience on-set was still tense.
"When we were shooting the movie, I had literally been told by my team to stay away from Fairuza," True recalled. "She can get away with stuff, and you will get fired for it. I was literally told, ‘You’re Black, so don’t say, 'F*** you, mommy,' like the white girls.'"
True also reflected on how she felt ignored during promotional tours and interviews. "They put up a poster of the four of us, mentioned the three girls and then skipped [me]," she said.
"This is how Black actors get underpaid, this is how they get forgotten... At the time, I don’t think my castmates understood. They were like, ‘You’re not as famous as us.’ What they didn’t get is that in the '90s the excluded Black person was never going to be as famous as you."
Unfortunately, True's marginalized experience didn't end with the film's production and publicity in the '90s. In July, the actor posted on Twitter for Showtime's streaming service to title her correctly as a film lead. Showtime didn't credit her at all.
In 2019, True also shared on Twitter that conventions reportedly ask her three co-stars of The Craft to be a part of panels, but not her.
Directed by Andrew Fleming, The Craft stars Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Rachel True as teens at a private school who dabble in witchcraft for their own gain. Soon, their spells have dark consequences. The film is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime.
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