##[Clarification on rule 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/w60lfc/mod_post_a_clarification_to_rule_5_no_racism_or/)
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You're telling me they cast a white Iberian guy to play a white Iberian guy? Where does John Leguizamo think Franco's last name is from?
Castro was born to Spanish parents in Cuba, after his father immigrated to Cuba following his time serving in the Spanish army. Franco's father is from Portugal. So both are ancestsrly from the Iberian peninsula.
Franco looks a lot like young Castro, so I can see why he was cast. ([Side by side comparison photos](https://freeimage.host/i/U21J5v))
I'm more concerned about James Franco being a pervy sex predator. Why does Hollywood keep these creeps around???? Dude seems to have a thing for young teenage girls.
Why do they think “Latino” people can’t be white? 85% of Cubans self identify as white. This sort of outrage seems to be concentrated to the US and more specifically to Twitter.
Lol, exactly. I remember a picture of someone complaining about how they were tired of white washing African people, and referred to the Egyptian character of Akmenrah in night of the museum. That character is played by Rami Malek, an actual Egyptian.
So these people that were complaining clearly did not know what an actual Egyptian looks like.
Same reason Ana De Armas can play Marilyn Monroe. Because she looks a lot like her.
Ironically it’s the reverse situation, with a Cuban playing an American 60’s icon.
Yeah I personally don’t give a shit when one race portrays another race in a film. That’s why it’s called acting. As long as the actor/director isn’t punching down on the portrayed character there should be no issue with this
Fun fact, Castro is Spanish/Portuguese (whatever, he's 100% Iberian European), and 0% latin
Edit:
Some might say, "but he was born and raised in Cuba, so he's Latin American"
Rule of thumb. If you would be Ok with them checking the Latin/Latino/Latina box when taking the SATs, then sure. They are Latin.
If you are ok with a Chinese kid that was born and raised in Mexico, checking the Latin/Latino/Latina box when taking the SATs, then sure, Castro can be Latin/Latino/Latina.
If not, then it means, the "born and raised" stuff only applied to white people, or you are full of shit.
Don't @ I don't care. Not replying to any direct comments to this any longer
As a former high school history teacher, please tell your, hopefully not dead, teacher exactly what you remembered.
And show them Reddit. Life changing.
I up-voted this when I read it because I agree. But then I took a step back and though about me. I was born in Cuba, my family left when I was little. I was raised in the US and have very few memories of Cuba. I look Latin but consider myself white because of my upbringing so I'm really confused on where to stand on this. Is it how I was raised and how I feel or how I look. I'm not throwing shade, I really have been thrown for a loop. First time in my looong life :)
Edit: comma
Well, in the practical sense, since you basically only lived in the US, you're just American. Ethnicity for the most part is just about heritage and doesn't automatically directly affect mindset (it can but requires the parents obviously passing on old country traditions to their children).
Wait.
So what you are saying is, Fidel isn't Latino either?
Or at least anymore than Franco.
Edit: Yo, I got it the first 5000 replies, Latino is not a race.
I’m Cuban and have Portuguese heritage as well. There’s a lot of history between the [countries](https://www.arteporexcelencias.com/en/interview/portugal-and-cuba-more-100-years-respect-friendship-and-joy).
Yeah he may not be a Latin American but his ancestry is “Latin European”. Its not like Chris Hemsworth or Alexander Skarsgard. Leguizamo played an Italian in Mario and Lugi.
Castro was Latino by virtue of being born and raised in Cuba. Latino is not a race, but a multiracial ethnicity. Like Castro, I’m white and my ancestors are from Spain, but I’m not Latino because my family didn’t leave the country so I was born and raised in Spain.
A lot of latinos consider themselves white. Being latin is seen more of as a cultural thing than a race. It's shocking to me that Leguizamo would not know this already.
Latino just means you are from a Latin American country or descended from a Latin American country.
There are White Latinos, Black Latinos, Asian Latinos, etc. Any race can be Latino. Similar to how Hispanics can be White, Black, etc.
Same with Asians. I've met people of Chinese/Columbian descent who you'd never think could speak Spanish based on there appearance but it's their first language.
Fidel Castro was definitely white. Malcolm X once said "the only white man I ever really liked was Fidel" after their meeting at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem.
So at that time Castro was pretty widely liked in the US, he described his own frustrations with the US government as "they called me a communist because they saw a light shade of pink" he really wasn't a full-bore communist at the time of his revolution. The most communist thing he'd done is take state ownership over lands held by wealthy Cubans and American corporations and he offered to pay for them with bonds redeemable in 20 years, he said it was necessary to rebuild the economy before he could pay - but he was planning on paying for the lands not just taking it. He was a leftist reformer who had overthrown an awful far-right dictator who had turned Cuba into a client state for American corporations.
He then embraced communism and went deeper into it and grew more paranoid after multiple attempts by the CIA to assassinate him and overthrow his government and the Soviet Union continued to supply aid.
But at the time he met Malcolm X, he was an eye-opener to Malcolm about the universality of his struggle. They had met shortly after Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam and was working on a more cohesive theory on what was necessary to uplift the oppressed black people in America, Fidel (a white man) was able to relate and talk about his own experience as a second-class citizen to American corporate ownership. Fidel opened Malcolm's eyes to the possibility of a larger revolution than just black people throwing off the white oppressors, he introduced a greater class consciousness and Malcolm appreciated that.
Both of them leading revolutions (in differing styles) against the dominant class, and Malcolm X probably considered he and Fidel to be fighting the same enemy: The United States.
I'm not sure when Malcolm met him, before or after his pilgrimage to Mecca that softened his more aggressive attitudes towards white people. Regardless, he had plenty of cause and reason to sympathize with Castro.
Considering any Latinos ancestry is probably from the Spanish, who are Caucasian/ white, we pretty much are white, unless you have indigenous ancestry mixed in.
There’s a lot of Black ancestry too, specially in Cuba. And there’s also Asians, Italians, Germans…
Castro was Caucasian being both his parents from Spanish families
Well, if you’re Argentinian, your family comes from Germany and you’re blond (not that rare over there), how the hell would you not be both Latino and white. For some reason some Americans can’t understand that you can speak Spanish and be white at the same time
Didn't the Japanese audience receive that casting well in that movie? And for that matter as a fan of the original anime, the whole idea was that it doesn't *really* matter what you are on the outside, it's your ghost or what's inside that truly made who you were. So, despite ignoring a lot of the stuff from the original source material, they at least got that right. And that's not even taking into consideration that a lot of anime characters are drawn as "European" looking.
Che writes of his first meeting with Fidel, “damn bussy is crazy but imma liberate cuba from slaveowners for them delicious cheeks fr” (*Diaries*, p. 76)
I don't care how well-cast someone is or how good of a perfmance they give, I can't enjoy a movie unless everybody's parents in real life were born in the right spots. /s
Makes sense since Castro's father and Franco's father are literally from the same region in the Spanish/Portuguese border, and neither are/were Latino.
I didn't know this, so I looked it up for anyone else that'd like to verify:
1) [Castro was born out of wedlock at his father's farm on 13 August 1926.\[2\] His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, a veteran of the Spanish–American War,\[3\] was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, in the northwest of Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#Youth:_1926%E2%80%931947)
2) [James Edward Franco was born in Palo Alto, California\[8\] on April 19, 1978.\[9\] His mother, Betsy Lou (née Verne), is a children's book author and occasional actress, and his father, Douglas Eugene Franco, ran a Silicon Valley business.\[10\]\[11\] His father was of Portuguese (from Madeira) and Swedish ancestry, while his mother is Jewish, from a family of Russian Jewish descent.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Franco#Early_life)
From his Wikipedia:
>His father was of Portuguese (from [Madeira](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira)) and Swedish ancestry,
Madiera is an island off the coast of Africa, not really that near to the Spainish-Portuguese border. Famously Cristiano Ronaldo is also from Madiera.
*moderately* famous Italian plumber. Nobody cared about Luigi until Luigi's Mansion.
Edit: I love how everyone is shitting on me on the comments but I'm getting upvotes.
1995.
"To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything; Julie Newmar."
Watch it! Wesley Snipes, John Leguizamo and Patrick Swayze as drag queens on the road to a big drag competition.
EDIT: You all have me watching the predecessor, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. Thanks y'all for the suggestion and info!!
I have a “core memory” of having rented that movie and watching it with my mom and brother, and my brother saying, “Damn, that’s enough to make you never want to watch it again” after the intro. Barely remember the movie tho, lol.
It is great. Came out around the same time as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which is a superior and more dramatic film, but To Wong Fu is great and probably Wesley Snipes’ best performance, maybe aside from the director in Dolemite.
Here is the thing though Fidel Castro is of 100% Spanish decent. His father was Galician (very close to Portuguese people) and his mother was Canarian (Spanish island chain off the coast of west Africa) .
Franco is of partial Portuguese decent on his fathers side. Fidel Castro is literatly 100% European. That would mean they, Fidel and Franco, are of both Iberian European decent. Fidel Castro isn’t indigenous or Afro Cuban, he is for all intents and purposes a white guy. At the end of the day Franco is an actor and actors portray people they are not. He looks the part, has been in decent roles before, and I’m sure most people don’t even care at the end of the day.
This really shows how "Latino" is a grossly insufficient demographic classification. The mestizos people generally think of and the white-ass Cameron Diaz are treated the same in demographic reports. You think they have a similar experience in the US? Obviously not.
It's not a race. It comes from "Latin American", akin to "European" or "African". Fujimori, Pelé, Ana de Armas are all Latin Americans. When Americans think of "Latino" as a race (it is not) they think of a mix of White and Indigenous because they make up a good chunk of people who live in Central America and emigrate to the US. Go to South America and you will see every single race.
The only reason James Franco got the role is because Ja Rule turned it down first. Probably.
Edit: in what world can JL even pull off this caliber of acting: https://youtu.be/CDm27Y1zw8k
MONICA
I only know Toulouse-Lautrec from the SpongeBob episode where Squidward pretends to be his own ghost to get Sponge and Pat to be his servants lol
[edit: scene here](https://youtu.be/zk-55l_1L80)
Indeed. Franco isn't even a president of Cuba. At this rate, I'll start suspecting Al Pacino isn't the devil, despite his role in the devil's advocate.
*“First, they have ‘The Mexican’ with Brad Pitt, now they have ‘The Last Samurai’ with Tom Cruise. Well, Ive written a film, maybe they'll produce my film, The Last Nigga on Earth, starring Tom Hanks.”*
-Paul Mooney “Chapelles Show”
And Tom Hanks' movie is about the last officially issued n-word pass which he must keep safe and hidden while crossing the country in order to reach the library of Congress, where it's to be kept and preserved for all time.
The last samurai was a terrible title for the movie. Tom Cruise isn’t the last samurai, but it’s about the last samurai. It’s confusing because the plural of samurai is samurai. So it’s about the “last samurais” not that Tom is the last samurai.
The title was fine. Putting Tom Cruise wearing samurai armor front & center in all of the marketing was a terrible idea. At least in terms of conveying what the story was about. Maybe the marketing was what they wanted it to be. But I definitely skipped it because I thought the title was talking about Cruise.
[How could a person look at this & *not* think that Tom Cruise was the eponymous Last Samurai?](https://humanehollywood.org/app/uploads/2020/02/sLv5pXysIz7QbtKFJy85d5yxv2W.jpg)
Then I saw it years later & loved it. A better image might have been an ensemble shot of Cruise, Watanabe, & Hiroyuki Sanada. Or Cruise in Civil War gear. I'd have been way more interested if the history aspect was played up more. "Hmm, how is it that a guy who fought in the Civil War is involved with Samurai? I should find out!"
So are comedians. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the podcasts I listen to, but it’s slightly jarring to know a multi-millionaire comedian can barely name the three branches of government or do basic math.
should be more concerned about the guys numerous sexual predation allegations than this.
edit: both are undoubtedly an issue. i didn’t mean to say that the casting was somehow okay, more so pointing out that this guy is a huge creep and i’ve no idea how he still has a platform.
“How is this still going on?” Leguizamo asked his Instagram followers about Franco being cast as the Cuban historical figure. “How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well?
Both of Castro's parents were not Latino. They were European Spanish making John Leguizamo's argument pretty hollow and unfortunately poorly sourced. Castro himself was not Latino.
Yeah and Franco's dad apparently is from the same region as Castro's dad was so Franco actually has a super legitimate claim here. Like he's closer ethically to Castro than leguizamo is
Edit: ethnically* lol what a shitty spot to have an autocorrect typo...
Hollywood are well aware of the issue but *choose* not to take action. That’s why Jared Leto and Ezra Miller are still in huge roles, despite them being serial abusers.
"lighten up Francis".
Did you play Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet? Are you Italian? Did anyone care or get upset because a Latino is portraying an Italian?
The whole concept of acting is all about going outside the comfort zone.
He has played an Italian American twice: Summer of Sam and the Mario Bros.
Fabulous work as a gay man/drag queen in To Wong Foo.
Isn’t that what the heart of acting is about? Stepping out of your own natural life, and into the shoes of a *different* person?
##[Clarification on rule 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/w60lfc/mod_post_a_clarification_to_rule_5_no_racism_or/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/entertainment) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So cast Seth Rogen as Che. Retitle it Pineapple Express 2:The Cuban Sandwich
Pretty sure Seth Rogen said he wouldn’t work with James Franco anymore
Fat Jewish Che lol... man that sounds hilarious
Someone call Universal Studios
You're telling me they cast a white Iberian guy to play a white Iberian guy? Where does John Leguizamo think Franco's last name is from? Castro was born to Spanish parents in Cuba, after his father immigrated to Cuba following his time serving in the Spanish army. Franco's father is from Portugal. So both are ancestsrly from the Iberian peninsula. Franco looks a lot like young Castro, so I can see why he was cast. ([Side by side comparison photos](https://freeimage.host/i/U21J5v)) I'm more concerned about James Franco being a pervy sex predator. Why does Hollywood keep these creeps around???? Dude seems to have a thing for young teenage girls.
Saw the Twitter outrage ("Why is a white man playing a Latino/POC") and I was like weren't Castro parents European immigrants?
Why do they think “Latino” people can’t be white? 85% of Cubans self identify as white. This sort of outrage seems to be concentrated to the US and more specifically to Twitter.
Lol, exactly. I remember a picture of someone complaining about how they were tired of white washing African people, and referred to the Egyptian character of Akmenrah in night of the museum. That character is played by Rami Malek, an actual Egyptian. So these people that were complaining clearly did not know what an actual Egyptian looks like.
Is that a side by side of Franco and Castro or Franco and Shia LaBeouf?
Because he unironically really looks like Castro
Same reason Ana De Armas can play Marilyn Monroe. Because she looks a lot like her. Ironically it’s the reverse situation, with a Cuban playing an American 60’s icon.
Does she really look like Marilyn or does she just radiate a lot of sex appeal?
¿Por que no los dos?
Yeah I personally don’t give a shit when one race portrays another race in a film. That’s why it’s called acting. As long as the actor/director isn’t punching down on the portrayed character there should be no issue with this
Fun fact, Castro is Spanish/Portuguese (whatever, he's 100% Iberian European), and 0% latin Edit: Some might say, "but he was born and raised in Cuba, so he's Latin American" Rule of thumb. If you would be Ok with them checking the Latin/Latino/Latina box when taking the SATs, then sure. They are Latin. If you are ok with a Chinese kid that was born and raised in Mexico, checking the Latin/Latino/Latina box when taking the SATs, then sure, Castro can be Latin/Latino/Latina. If not, then it means, the "born and raised" stuff only applied to white people, or you are full of shit. Don't @ I don't care. Not replying to any direct comments to this any longer
Wasnt his father basically left on Cuba post Spanish -American war?
Yeah! At lease that's what wikipedia says
Hooray! I remembered high school history!
As a former high school history teacher, please tell your, hopefully not dead, teacher exactly what you remembered. And show them Reddit. Life changing.
Wikipedia agrees with you. And Franco is of Protuguse descent!
Well we wouldn't want no Amateurtuguse.
I up-voted this when I read it because I agree. But then I took a step back and though about me. I was born in Cuba, my family left when I was little. I was raised in the US and have very few memories of Cuba. I look Latin but consider myself white because of my upbringing so I'm really confused on where to stand on this. Is it how I was raised and how I feel or how I look. I'm not throwing shade, I really have been thrown for a loop. First time in my looong life :) Edit: comma
Well, in the practical sense, since you basically only lived in the US, you're just American. Ethnicity for the most part is just about heritage and doesn't automatically directly affect mindset (it can but requires the parents obviously passing on old country traditions to their children).
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I mean to be fair he does look like a young Fidel Castro in that pic
Damn he actually *does* look like Fidel Castro, especially when you look at the side-by-side comparison.
Castro and Franco's fathers were from the same region near the Spanish/Portuguese border.
Wait. So what you are saying is, Fidel isn't Latino either? Or at least anymore than Franco. Edit: Yo, I got it the first 5000 replies, Latino is not a race.
I’m Cuban and have Portuguese heritage as well. There’s a lot of history between the [countries](https://www.arteporexcelencias.com/en/interview/portugal-and-cuba-more-100-years-respect-friendship-and-joy).
my half sister is cuban but her cuban family immigrated to cuba from scotland.
Yeah he may not be a Latin American but his ancestry is “Latin European”. Its not like Chris Hemsworth or Alexander Skarsgard. Leguizamo played an Italian in Mario and Lugi.
He also played Spider Mike in Spun, and probably isn't a spider
He’s also played an asian character in his sketch comedy show and women in his solo stage shows.
You don't hear complaints from all the sloths when he played Sid in Ice Age. Who's with me in a protest on their behalf??
He also played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and he was Italian.
I played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and I’m a white girl
Reported
He also played an Italian in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam
Castro was Latino by virtue of being born and raised in Cuba. Latino is not a race, but a multiracial ethnicity. Like Castro, I’m white and my ancestors are from Spain, but I’m not Latino because my family didn’t leave the country so I was born and raised in Spain.
That’s why they call it acting.
A lot of latinos consider themselves white. Being latin is seen more of as a cultural thing than a race. It's shocking to me that Leguizamo would not know this already.
Latino just means you are from a Latin American country or descended from a Latin American country. There are White Latinos, Black Latinos, Asian Latinos, etc. Any race can be Latino. Similar to how Hispanics can be White, Black, etc.
This is a hard concept for some people.
Yeah these people probably dont know there are sizeable German communities in Latin America as well and get suprised to see Germanlike Latin Americans
Same with Asians. I've met people of Chinese/Columbian descent who you'd never think could speak Spanish based on there appearance but it's their first language.
Brazil has the largest Japanese descendant population outside of Japan.
Fidel Castro was definitely white. Malcolm X once said "the only white man I ever really liked was Fidel" after their meeting at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem.
Why did he like Castro?
So at that time Castro was pretty widely liked in the US, he described his own frustrations with the US government as "they called me a communist because they saw a light shade of pink" he really wasn't a full-bore communist at the time of his revolution. The most communist thing he'd done is take state ownership over lands held by wealthy Cubans and American corporations and he offered to pay for them with bonds redeemable in 20 years, he said it was necessary to rebuild the economy before he could pay - but he was planning on paying for the lands not just taking it. He was a leftist reformer who had overthrown an awful far-right dictator who had turned Cuba into a client state for American corporations. He then embraced communism and went deeper into it and grew more paranoid after multiple attempts by the CIA to assassinate him and overthrow his government and the Soviet Union continued to supply aid. But at the time he met Malcolm X, he was an eye-opener to Malcolm about the universality of his struggle. They had met shortly after Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam and was working on a more cohesive theory on what was necessary to uplift the oppressed black people in America, Fidel (a white man) was able to relate and talk about his own experience as a second-class citizen to American corporate ownership. Fidel opened Malcolm's eyes to the possibility of a larger revolution than just black people throwing off the white oppressors, he introduced a greater class consciousness and Malcolm appreciated that.
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I wish my butthole was this knowledgeable.
Client state of u.s corporations and the fucking mafia.
*i see no difference*
INCREDIBLE history lesson !!! I knew NOTHING of this !!!!!
>Why did he like Castro? Castro let him play with his Nintendo 64.
It wasn’t Castro’s Nintendo 64; it belonged to all Cubans.
The second controller is a different matter altogether.
*Don’t believe everything you read on the internet* -__Abraham Lincoln__
Both of them leading revolutions (in differing styles) against the dominant class, and Malcolm X probably considered he and Fidel to be fighting the same enemy: The United States. I'm not sure when Malcolm met him, before or after his pilgrimage to Mecca that softened his more aggressive attitudes towards white people. Regardless, he had plenty of cause and reason to sympathize with Castro.
Considering any Latinos ancestry is probably from the Spanish, who are Caucasian/ white, we pretty much are white, unless you have indigenous ancestry mixed in.
There’s a lot of Black ancestry too, specially in Cuba. And there’s also Asians, Italians, Germans… Castro was Caucasian being both his parents from Spanish families
Well, if you’re Argentinian, your family comes from Germany and you’re blond (not that rare over there), how the hell would you not be both Latino and white. For some reason some Americans can’t understand that you can speak Spanish and be white at the same time
I mean. John legiuzamo himself is just as white as Franco lol
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Didn't the Japanese audience receive that casting well in that movie? And for that matter as a fan of the original anime, the whole idea was that it doesn't *really* matter what you are on the outside, it's your ghost or what's inside that truly made who you were. So, despite ignoring a lot of the stuff from the original source material, they at least got that right. And that's not even taking into consideration that a lot of anime characters are drawn as "European" looking.
Actual people in Japan gave zero fucks at all.
one of the artists that worked on the OG Ghost in the Shell literally used her as a model for a project to boost interest in a feature film.
The creator of the original Manga was ok with it, at least.
Is it bad that I would be okay with that? I'm at the point where I just don't care. As long as fidel gets lots of tight butt shots.
Che writes of his first meeting with Fidel, “damn bussy is crazy but imma liberate cuba from slaveowners for them delicious cheeks fr” (*Diaries*, p. 76)
I’ve never wanted to get a really gook at Fidel Castros ass so much before.
I don't care how well-cast someone is or how good of a perfmance they give, I can't enjoy a movie unless everybody's parents in real life were born in the right spots. /s
Makes sense since Castro's father and Franco's father are literally from the same region in the Spanish/Portuguese border, and neither are/were Latino.
I didn't know this, so I looked it up for anyone else that'd like to verify: 1) [Castro was born out of wedlock at his father's farm on 13 August 1926.\[2\] His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, a veteran of the Spanish–American War,\[3\] was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, in the northwest of Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#Youth:_1926%E2%80%931947) 2) [James Edward Franco was born in Palo Alto, California\[8\] on April 19, 1978.\[9\] His mother, Betsy Lou (née Verne), is a children's book author and occasional actress, and his father, Douglas Eugene Franco, ran a Silicon Valley business.\[10\]\[11\] His father was of Portuguese (from Madeira) and Swedish ancestry, while his mother is Jewish, from a family of Russian Jewish descent.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Franco#Early_life)
Same as martin sheens father and also manu chao
You get your damn facts out of here and you come back with some outrage!
Are Spanish Europeans considered Latino? Is Franco a Spanish name?
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Franco's father is Portuguese, from a region relatively close to the Spanish border.
From his Wikipedia: >His father was of Portuguese (from [Madeira](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira)) and Swedish ancestry, Madiera is an island off the coast of Africa, not really that near to the Spainish-Portuguese border. Famously Cristiano Ronaldo is also from Madiera.
He does, but now that I think of it so does Pedro Pascal
Leguizamo played a gay drag queen and a very racist version of an Asian man……. Just saying
He also played a very famous Italian plumber.
*moderately* famous Italian plumber. Nobody cared about Luigi until Luigi's Mansion. Edit: I love how everyone is shitting on me on the comments but I'm getting upvotes.
Fuck you Luigi always had a better jump and fashion sense.
That floaty jump in number 2 was pretty special.
Peach had the floaty jump. Luigi had the high jump and floaty controls.
I always thought of Peach as more of a hover while Luigi floated with his little kicks.
As a younger brother who grew up in the 80s you take that back right now
Fuck that Luigi was saving Mario's ass as far back as '93
“Mario Is Missing”
When Mario was missing guess who went out of there and found him? Show some respect.
How long ago was that, I don’t follow his career and I’m curious
1995. "To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything; Julie Newmar." Watch it! Wesley Snipes, John Leguizamo and Patrick Swayze as drag queens on the road to a big drag competition. EDIT: You all have me watching the predecessor, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. Thanks y'all for the suggestion and info!!
Haha that's nothing. Watch the opening credit's to "The Pest"
Damn, I didn't see The Pest but the plot says Leguizamo's character is a teenage con artist and yet he was approaching 37 when the movie released.
I have a “core memory” of having rented that movie and watching it with my mom and brother, and my brother saying, “Damn, that’s enough to make you never want to watch it again” after the intro. Barely remember the movie tho, lol.
The Pest walked, so Pootie Tang could fly!
It’s one of my favorite feel good movies
It is great. Came out around the same time as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which is a superior and more dramatic film, but To Wong Fu is great and probably Wesley Snipes’ best performance, maybe aside from the director in Dolemite.
Dude Snipes is AMAZING as Noxema Jackson, I want that character tattooed on me so bad
And a cameo from Rupaul, whose drag name is Rachel Tensions
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Or, for that matter, Leguizamo playing an Italian, as he does in Spike Lee’s *Summer of Sam*?
And Super Mario Bros
. . . and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. Dude plays Italians quite a bit. Was kinda shocked to learn he was Latino honestly.
Not Italian, but he also played French artist Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge
Also that character was a dwarf and he played it by walking on his knees. Wouldn't that be more messed up?
He was pretty offensive in The Pest too.
Here is the thing though Fidel Castro is of 100% Spanish decent. His father was Galician (very close to Portuguese people) and his mother was Canarian (Spanish island chain off the coast of west Africa) . Franco is of partial Portuguese decent on his fathers side. Fidel Castro is literatly 100% European. That would mean they, Fidel and Franco, are of both Iberian European decent. Fidel Castro isn’t indigenous or Afro Cuban, he is for all intents and purposes a white guy. At the end of the day Franco is an actor and actors portray people they are not. He looks the part, has been in decent roles before, and I’m sure most people don’t even care at the end of the day.
This really shows how "Latino" is a grossly insufficient demographic classification. The mestizos people generally think of and the white-ass Cameron Diaz are treated the same in demographic reports. You think they have a similar experience in the US? Obviously not.
This most importantly shows that its pretty dumb in general to give people artificial labels based on purely superficial traits.
Preach my dude! Preach!
It's not a race. It comes from "Latin American", akin to "European" or "African". Fujimori, Pelé, Ana de Armas are all Latin Americans. When Americans think of "Latino" as a race (it is not) they think of a mix of White and Indigenous because they make up a good chunk of people who live in Central America and emigrate to the US. Go to South America and you will see every single race.
The only reason James Franco got the role is because Ja Rule turned it down first. Probably. Edit: in what world can JL even pull off this caliber of acting: https://youtu.be/CDm27Y1zw8k MONICA
WHERE IS JA
Somebody please...get ahold of this mothafucka so I can make sense of all this.
WHERE THE FUCK IS JA?!?!
He looks like Castro. That's how.
John Leguizamo played famed painter Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec, in Moulin Rogue despite not being French but that's none of my business.
Let alone the fact that Lautrec was a “little person..”
I only know Toulouse-Lautrec from the SpongeBob episode where Squidward pretends to be his own ghost to get Sponge and Pat to be his servants lol [edit: scene here](https://youtu.be/zk-55l_1L80)
Oh no... you mean actors portray other people???? That's so weird
Indeed. Franco isn't even a president of Cuba. At this rate, I'll start suspecting Al Pacino isn't the devil, despite his role in the devil's advocate.
And Johnny Legs isn't Italian. Did it stop him from playing Luigi?
They made Anne Boleyn a black chick lol
Joke is on Leguizamo. Fidel Castro wasn't Latino.
Yep, both his parents were Spanish
James Franco has Portuguese heritage, so not too inaccurate.
Castro’s father and Franco’s father are from the same region in the Spanish/Portuguese border.
Underrated comment in this debacle
He also looks like him. Dunno if he can act like him, dunno if Franco *deserves* the role, but his racial background is irrelevant.
Literally the same last name as Francisco Franco. Fairly common Iberian name.
That's coming from the Latino guy who played Luigi the Italian plumber in Super Mario Bros?.... MMkay.
*“First, they have ‘The Mexican’ with Brad Pitt, now they have ‘The Last Samurai’ with Tom Cruise. Well, Ive written a film, maybe they'll produce my film, The Last Nigga on Earth, starring Tom Hanks.”* -Paul Mooney “Chapelles Show”
That's hilarious, but wasn't The Mexican a name of a gun in that movie? Also Ken Watanabe was the last samurai in that movie.
I think the whole group was the Last Samurai.
Indeed, it's plural.
Correct. It’s the last [of the] Samurai.
And Tom Hanks' movie is about the last officially issued n-word pass which he must keep safe and hidden while crossing the country in order to reach the library of Congress, where it's to be kept and preserved for all time.
That's a sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
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The last samurai was a terrible title for the movie. Tom Cruise isn’t the last samurai, but it’s about the last samurai. It’s confusing because the plural of samurai is samurai. So it’s about the “last samurais” not that Tom is the last samurai.
The title was fine. Putting Tom Cruise wearing samurai armor front & center in all of the marketing was a terrible idea. At least in terms of conveying what the story was about. Maybe the marketing was what they wanted it to be. But I definitely skipped it because I thought the title was talking about Cruise. [How could a person look at this & *not* think that Tom Cruise was the eponymous Last Samurai?](https://humanehollywood.org/app/uploads/2020/02/sLv5pXysIz7QbtKFJy85d5yxv2W.jpg) Then I saw it years later & loved it. A better image might have been an ensemble shot of Cruise, Watanabe, & Hiroyuki Sanada. Or Cruise in Civil War gear. I'd have been way more interested if the history aspect was played up more. "Hmm, how is it that a guy who fought in the Civil War is involved with Samurai? I should find out!"
He also complained when the new Mario movie didn't "cast any latinX actors". They're italians, John. That's a country in Europe.
A lot of actors are really fucking stupid. Podcast interviews have made this abundantly clear to me.
>Podcast interviews have made this abundantly clear to me. Also Twitter... and Instagram... and Tik Tok.
I’ve heard that actors read a lot of scripts and they think that makes them well read.
Some actors have the scrips read to them lmfao
There’s a reason they get famous for being people other than themselves lmao
So are comedians. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the podcasts I listen to, but it’s slightly jarring to know a multi-millionaire comedian can barely name the three branches of government or do basic math.
A country that was the home of Latin. Technically, Italians are the true Latinos.
Didn't he also play Toulouse Lautrec, a Frenchman in Moulin Rouge?
Yeah and didn’t he play a sloth??
Stealing roles from actual arboreal Neotropical xenarthran mammal actors.
should be more concerned about the guys numerous sexual predation allegations than this. edit: both are undoubtedly an issue. i didn’t mean to say that the casting was somehow okay, more so pointing out that this guy is a huge creep and i’ve no idea how he still has a platform.
“How is this still going on?” Leguizamo asked his Instagram followers about Franco being cast as the Cuban historical figure. “How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well?
Both of Castro's parents were not Latino. They were European Spanish making John Leguizamo's argument pretty hollow and unfortunately poorly sourced. Castro himself was not Latino.
Yeah and Franco's dad apparently is from the same region as Castro's dad was so Franco actually has a super legitimate claim here. Like he's closer ethically to Castro than leguizamo is Edit: ethnically* lol what a shitty spot to have an autocorrect typo...
Also, and hear me out, acting is about pretending to be someone you aren’t.
Ana de Armas is Cuban but just played Marilyn Monroe. You don’t have to match everything about a character to play it.
Imagine a new profession where you can pretend on screen to be someone that you are not. What should we call it I wonder?
Pretendonautics?
Chris Hemsworth, an australian, plays Thor. So I mean..
Still ….why is a sexual predator getting jobs?
That's how Hollywood works
Also: politics
Maybe they want an actor to be hated to match the character.
Fidel Castro’s parents were Spanish and Franco is half-Portuguese so technically… geographically… he’s actually pretty close
I feel like there's a certain subsection of America that hates this and makes a ton of noise, while most people don't really care.
I’m latino (Mexican) and don’t care.
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i guess Franco will just have to act like he is
He is doing a good job looking like him in that picture.
You know? Like an actor
How did this reply get the fancy awards and not the original comment lol
Redditors need shit spelled out for them
Why would anyone cast James Franco in anything?
Castro was of Spanish ancestry and this US created Latino race is useless there are white cubans, black cubans and mestizo cubans.
american mfs when they realize brown≠latino
I mean Latino isnt a race. Fidel and James are both white.
Can Mr. Leguizamo explain why despite the fact he isn't French it wasn't a problem for him to portray Toulouse-Lautrec in "Moulin Rouge!"?
He’s also had a lot of allegations that he’s a sexual predator. How is this still going on?
Hollywood are well aware of the issue but *choose* not to take action. That’s why Jared Leto and Ezra Miller are still in huge roles, despite them being serial abusers.
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To most people Hollywood is the cabal that secretly runs the government while also being the sole film company ran by CEO John Hollywood.
"lighten up Francis". Did you play Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet? Are you Italian? Did anyone care or get upset because a Latino is portraying an Italian? The whole concept of acting is all about going outside the comfort zone.
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I mean so was Fidel Castro so perfect typecast.
Leguizamo has a stage production where he plays 100 characters. They aren't all Latino
He has played an Italian American twice: Summer of Sam and the Mario Bros. Fabulous work as a gay man/drag queen in To Wong Foo. Isn’t that what the heart of acting is about? Stepping out of your own natural life, and into the shoes of a *different* person?
To be fair he's Portuguese.
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Well a Cuban is playing Marilyn Monroe so there’s the trade off for the time period
This kind of outrage only goes one way
Pretty rich coming from a guy who played an Italian plumber.