Skrein gave up his role as Major Ben Daimo to not "obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the arts."
Daniel Dae Kim is in talks to replace Ed Skrein as Major Ben Daimo in the upcoming Hellboy reboot.
Variety reports that the former Hawaii Five-0 actor has begun talks to take on the Japanese-American character. Lionsgate has been keen to replace Skrein after he left the production.
“I accepted the role unaware that the character in the original comics was of mixed Asian heritage,” Skrein wrote on Instagram with regards to his decision to leave the film.
“There has been intense conversation and understandable upset since that announcement and I must do what I feel is right,” he added.
“It is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people and to neglect this responsibility would continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the arts,”
“I feel it is important to honor and respect that.”
Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin, producers of Hellboy, said in a statement, “Ed came to us and felt very strongly about this. We fully support his unselfish decision.”
“It was not our intent to be insensitive to issues of authenticity and ethnicity, and we will look to recast the part with an actor more consistent with the character in the source material.”
Earlier this year, Kim left CBS show Hawaii Five-0 following a contract dispute. Discussing his exit, Kim said that finding opportunities for Asian actors was difficult.
“As an Asian-American actor, I know first-hand how difficult it is to find opportunities at all, let alone play a well developed, three dimensional character like Chin Ho,” he said. “I will miss him sincerely.