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  • Ingrid Bergman as María in For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943)


    The love interest in the adaption of the classic Hemingway novel was actually born in Sweden.




  • Marlon Brando as Emiliano Zapata (1952)


    It appears that Brando's skin was smudged brown to make him look more Mexican for this role as revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata.




  • Natalie Wood and George Charkiris in West Side Story (1961)


    Don't be fooled by the occasionally rolled r's -- Natalie Wood is the American-born daughter of Russian immigrants.




  • Jack Palance as Fidel Castro in Che (1969)


    In a made-for-TV film, Jack Palance played Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro alongside Omar Shariff as Ernesto "Che" Guevara. In In the words of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, <a href="http://www.nalip.org/announcement.php?id=385" target="_blank">"What were they thinking?"</a>




  • Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface (1983)


    While Al Pacino's over-the-top performance captures the loud volume of the Cuban-American, something about the accent seems a little off.




  • Armand Assante as a Cuban in the Mambo Kings (1992)


    Hollywood often views Italian-Americans as interchangeable with Latinos. Spaniards, like co-star Antonio Banderas, may also be used to fit any Latin American role.




  • Hank Azaria in the Birdcage (1996)


    Azaria got one of his major breaks playing Guatemalan housekeeper Agador.




  • Madonna as Evita (1996)


    Though <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/lourdes-leon-dad-carlos_n_3112960.html" target="_blank">Madonna has a Cuban-American daughter</a>, the singer herself does not have Hispanic roots.




  • John Turturro as Jesús in the Big Lebowski (1998)


    Perhaps the most memorable Latino caricature in all of U.S. cinema. Not even sure we'd want a real Mexican-American to play the role of sexually deviant bowler Jesús in "The Big Lebowski."




  • Anthony Hopkins as El Zorro (1998)


    Way off.




  • Johnny Depp as a Cuban in Before Night Falls (2000)


    As a young man, Johnny Depp lived in South Florida for a while, which is kind of like being Cuban.




  • Ben Affleck in Argo (2012)


    While many portrayed "Argo" as a missed opportunity for aspiring Latino actors, though it turns out the real life <a href="http://nbclatino.com/2013/01/10/argos-real-tony-mendez-im-not-hispanic/" target="_blank">Tony Mendez doesn't really identify as Hispanic</a>.





It's no secret that Latinos often get passed up for the best roles in Hollywood -- even when those roles call for Hispanics.


The long-running controversy cropped up once again last year when Ben Affleck chose himself to play the role of CIA agent Tony Mendez in a dramatization of a true story about rescuing U.S. hostages in Iran. "Argo" may not have been the best film to make the case, since Mendez doesn't really think of himself as Hispanic, but the issue resurfaced nonetheless.


To Affleck's credit, however, Hollywood has a long history of picking non-Latinos to play Hispanics, stretching back to the mid-20th century. If you haven't seen Marlon Brando cast as Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, or John Turturro's classic interpretation of a sexually deviant bowler, now's your chance.


Check out 12 non-Latino actors cast as Hispanics in the slideshow above.