James Franco to play Fidel Castro, film directed by Javier Bardem’s cousin

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Double Golden Globe winner James Franco is the new Fidel Castro! The actor, who admitted last December that he had intimate relationships with his students, will play the Cuban leader in the new film “Alina from Cuba” (Alina of Castro), about the life of Castro’s daughter, Alina Fernandez (played by Ana Viyafanya). This was reported by the portal Deadline. According to project producer John Martinez, the biggest challenge was finding an actor who physically resembled Castro. Not a single actor of Cuban origin came up for this role, so they decided to offer this role to Franco.

Our director’s initial order was to find an actor who would have a close physical resemblance to Castro and who would be strongly endorsed by Alina Fernandez,” said Lead Creative Producer John Martinez O’Phelan. “To discover such a complex face, we used Fidel Castro’s ancient Galician heraldry as a guide, and then looked at all the actors with Hispanic roots in Hollywood looking for someone with a similar facial structure.

The drama will tell about the difficult relationship between a domineering father and his daughter. She learned the secret of her origin at the age of 10 and subsequently became one of the most vocal critics of Castro, not supporting his regime. Alina was recognized in Cuba as a dissident and was repeatedly arrested. In the early 1990s, she secretly left the island under the guise of a Spanish tourist. She was also banned from leaving the country. However, in 1993, Fernandez managed to move to Spain and then move to Miami. Then her fate attracted the attention of the public around the world.

Miguel Bardem, cousin of popular actor Javier Bardem, will direct. He also has paintings “Mother” and “Quarantine Stories”. The film will be written by Jose Rivera (Che Guevara: The Motorcycle Diaries) with Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz. Also in the cast of the biopic are Alanna de la Rosa, Maria Cecilia Botero, Harding Junior, Xian Chiong, Rafael Ernesto Hernandez and Mia Maestro, the latter playing the role of Castro’s mistress Natalia Revuelta.

Filming will take place in the Colombian cities of Cartagena and Bogota, they will start on August 15.

Recall that James Franco was massively accused of sexual harassment in October 2019. Sara Teeter-Kaplan and Tony Gaal are suing the actor and his Studio 4 acting school, alleging that Franco and other teachers behaved inappropriately, causing their actions to “lead to an environment of harassment and sexual exploitation both in and out of the classroom.” his”. In 2021, Franco reached an agreement with the students, they dropped their claims, and the actor paid them over $2 million to settle their lawsuits. Apparently, this story has already subsided, as Franco has already received the second big role in the last six months – in May it became known that he will play the main role in the crime drama Mace directed by John Emiel (“The Trap”, “The Man Who Knew Too Little”, “American Gods”).