- director Gabby Dellal wanted to cast Elle Fanning in the lead role of About Ray, a story about a teen transitioning from female to male: “I could not have chosen a more blonde, more feminine actress who had a big a mountain to climb. And that's what I'm interested in."
- Dellal stands by her choice to cast a cis as a trans because the role is for someone who hasn't transitioned yet + also uses female pronouns to refer to Ray:"The part is a girl and she is a girl who is presenting in a very ineffectual way as a boy [...] She’s not pretending to have a deeper voice. She’s just a girl who is being herself and is chasing the opportunity to start hormone treatment. So to actually use a trans boy was not an option because this isn’t what my story is about,”
- financing was also an issue: "I would never discriminate against a trans kid or actor coming up to audition, but in this day and age in cinema, where it’s almost impossible to raise the financing, unfortunately we have to have some people that mean a certain amount of money"
source: refinery