Charlie Hunnam To Play Drug Lord LA BARBIE

Published on January 27, 2016

Producers of a new movie about Mexican-American drug lord EDGAR VALDEZ VILLARREAL have really tested Hollywood’s diversity issue by casting white British actor CHARLIE HUNNAM as their lead.

The Sons of Anarchy star will portray Villarreal in the film about the life and arrest of the first American to join the ranks of the Mexican cartel.

According to the Los Angeles Times, executives at Legendary Studios have acquired the rights to a Rolling Stone article about the drug boss, dubbed La Barbie, and they’ve picked Hunnam to play him.

The news comes amid a serious diversity crisis in Hollywood on the back of the lack of Oscar nominations for people of colour.

Oscars bosses have changed their voting rules in an effort to correct the problem, and many stars have taken aim at studio bosses and producers for not casting African-Americans and Latinos in Academy Award-worthy roles.

Hunnam’s casting as La Barbie follows outrage surrounding Scottish star Gerard Butler’s portrayal of an Egyptian in Gods of Egypt, Welsh actor Christian Bale’s role as Moses in Exodus and Emma Stone, who was cast as an Asian-Hawaiian woman in Cameron Crowe’s film Aloha.