John Leguizamo is upset with who’s playing Castro

Amovie about the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is in the works, but one actor is not happy about who’s going to play the lead role.

John Leguizamo took to social media to slam Hollywood executives for casting James Franco as Castro in the upcoming film.

“How is this still going on?” Leguizamo said in an Instagram post. “How is Hollywood excluding us, but stealing our narratives as well? No more appropriation Hollywood and streamers. Boycott! This F’d up!”

The post was in response to an article featured in Deadline that announced Franco, who’s White, will star opposite Mía Maestro in the independent film, “Alina of Cuba.”

According to a news report, the movie will follow the life of Castro and Natalia Revuelta’s daughter, Alina Fernandez, a “Cuban exile turned social advocate.” Revuelta was a Cuban-born socialite who allegedly had an affair with Castro.

Leguizamo is a staunch advocate for Latinx representation in film and television and said casting Franco as Castro was wrong because he’s not Latino. According to the news report, he doesn’t have an issue with Franco as an actor; he just thinks a Latino

should have been cast, instead.

This shouldn’t be surprising, though. In fact, it’s not the first time that someone other than a Latino has portrayed Castro in film. Ukrainian American actor Jack Palance was him in the 1969 movie “Che!” He also played an indigenous Apache chief’s son in “Arrowhead,” 1953.

Hollywood has a problematic history when it comes to casting white actors in roles representing other races. Here are some examples:

• Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl in the 2007 film “A Mighty Heart.”

• Ben Affleck as Antonio J. Mendez in “Argo,” 2012.

• Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in 1963.

• Jim Sturgess as Jeffrey Ma in the 2008 film, “21.”

• Sean Connery as Mulai Ahmed Er Raisuni in the 1975 film, “The Wind and the Lion.”

• Shirley Temple appeared in blackface as a slave child in the 1935 film, “The Littlest Rebel.”

• Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson in the 2016 TV movie, “Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon.”

• Katherine Hepburn played a Chinese farmer in 1944’s “Dragon Seed.”

These are just a few examples, but there are many more. We understand where Leguizamo is coming from. It doesn’t help that this sort of thing has been going on for decades. It’s 2022 and one would think they’d have figured it out by now. Though we hope that Hollywood would listen, it doesn’t seem likely.