Current Events > John Leguizamo speaks out against the casting of James Franco as Fidel Castro

(+) Yeah! (+)

FLAMING_EVIL_HOMER posted...

Is it a comedy? Lol

I hope so

Danny McBride can play his decoy.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Leguizamo was plastered on the set, at one point he fucked up a van door during an action scene and slammed Bob Hoskins' arm with it. Broke the dude's arm.

That being said - I think it's reductive to boil this down to Twitter beef aimed at James Franco. Criticism of the casting is one aspect of this backlash, but that came after Leguizamo criticized the concept as tough to execute without aggrandizing Fidel Castro, which he feels would be the wrong thing to do.

He's saying to boycott the movie because it's a fucked up idea, and Franco's casting is one aspect that points towards this movie not getting it right.

Unless a "Castro!" movie is entirely filmed in Spanish, they already fucked up.
It's either going to be communist propaganda or anti-communist propaganda, and I don't expect either of those to get it right.

Tbh it's kinda funny how people are seriously saying "but he played the fictional character Luigi 20 something years ago"

Like yeah we also had white people playing black people all the time on screen at one point lol

MrMallard posted...

Leguizamo was plastered on the set, at one point he fucked up a van door during an action scene and slammed Bob Hoskins' arm with it. Broke the dude's arm.

He drove too quickly and the van's sliding door broke Hoskin's finger, not his arm and he didn't fuck up the door.

Smashingpmkns posted...

Like yeah we also had white people playing black people all the time on screen at one point lol

Samurai Jack was a black guy playing an asian guy, and we loved it.

DD_Divine posted...

I hope so

Danny McBride can play his decoy.

lol or Dennis Castro

Kimbos_Egg posted...

fidel castro is portuguese though.

Are you high?

Lol @ all the "and you aint italian" commenters. getting roasted!

Castro's father was from northwest spain. Franco also has heritege from the exact same region of Spain which is why he looks very similar to a younger Fidel. I'm all for people calling out James Franco over the creepy allegations and the fact that he's just a mediocre actor, but this isn't white washing. Pretty dumb thing for people to complain about in my opinion.

Fidel was white though.... Born in Cuba, but family from Spain.

Shit like this is getting ridiculous.

However, I agree that a movie about Castro should be in Spanish. I don't think Franco can pull that off. No matter how much he looks like Castro.

I get where Leguizamo is coming from, but this specific case is not actually a part of the whitewashing Hollywood always does.
It also doesn't that Leguizamo has a problematic past himself with taking roles, admittedly norms change and people grow, but it's still something the Right will use against him.

The bigger problem is that Franco is a POS creep who shouldn't continue to get roles.

Are the people mad about this also mad about giancarlo Esposito as prof x

Ar0ge posted...

Fidel was white though.... Born in Cuba, but family from Spain.

Shit like this is getting ridiculous.

However, I agree that a movie about Castro should be in Spanish. I don't think Franco can pull that off. No matter how much he looks like Castro.

thats how most Latinx became Latinx, their ancestors came from Spain. Do you really think the Mayans and Inca looked like Leguizamo or even like Diego Boneta?