Antonio Banderas Says Hollywood Executives Told Him Hispanics and Blacks Can Only Play ‘Bad Guys’

A-list actor Antonio Banderas says when he came to Hollywood in the early 1990s, he was told black and Hispanic actors can only play the bad guys. But he broke that stereotype almost immediately.

Banderas told the Times of London that Hollywood suits told him not to expect to get hero roles. But it wasn’t long before he was cast as the sword-wielding hero in the 1998 action flick, The Mask of Zorro.

“They said, ‘You are here, like the Blacks and the Hispanics, to play the bad guys,’” Banderas told the paper. “The problem was a few years later I had a mask, hat, sword and cape and the bad guy was Captain Love, who was blond and had blue eyes.”

“Even more important is Puss in Boots, because it’s for young kids,” Banderas continued. “They see a cat that has a Spanish, even an Andalusian accent