The last cast of James Franco, an evidently not Cuban actor has received a major reaction from the ‘Cuban community’, or the ‘Cuban association of actors’.
The ‘Deadline’ has recently announced that James Franco will play the former Cuban President Fidel Castro in a biopic. The Biopic ‘Alina Of Cuba’ is about Fidel Castro’s exiled daughter Alina Fernandez.
James Franco Is Cast As Fidel Castro After The Allegations Of Sexual Harassment – Cuban Actors React – Are There No Latino Actors That Can Play Castro?
And this choice of actors might be a problem. The majority of the cast for the movie are real Latino, while James Franco isn’t and he gets to play one of the main characters in the biopic. Latino actors are not afraid to express their dissatisfaction with the choice the film crew made. John Leguizamo goes on Instagram and shows his disagreement with the topic.
“How is this still going on?” – Leguizamo says about the choice of actors and the fact that this is still being forced to happen. “How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well? No more appropriation of Hollywood and streamers! Boycott!”
At the moment the public is not aware of any dispute that these two might have. Furthermore, close people to both characters claim that Leguizamo thinks James Franco is in fact a really good actor. However, he simply believes that when choosing a person to play Fidel Castro, the management should think about enrolling someone ‘native’ to do the job.
Latinos make up about 20% of the whole population of the USA. This is something that we can’t ignore. They are a part of American society and they greatly contribute to it. Despite this fact, in Hollywood, we have less than 5% actors of Latin origins.
To make things even spicier, James Franco’s cast is following after two and a half years of silence and no mentioning of his name due to sexual harassment allegations. Allegedly, Franco was sexually harassing students at New York University. Numerous women that had classes with the actor came out and backed up the claims about his ‘creepy’ character.
However, Franco denies all claims and says that ‘if he did something wrong he’ll fix it’.
One thing that people can’t do – is they can’t deny the physical resemblance that Franco has with Fidel Castro. However, this is not the only quality that an actor needs in order to ‘land’ a role.
“James Franco has an obvious physical resemblance with Fidel Castro, besides his skills and charisma.” – Alina Fernández says. She adds that she is proud that “the project is almost entirely Latino, both in front and behind the camera.”
What are your thoughts on this? Is James Franco the right choice for this role?
