In 2009, it was announced that Johnny Depp would play Pancho Villa in the movie The Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Seven Fingers, which is still in development. Depp eventually dropped out, and Gael Garcia Bernal and Benicio Del Toro were rumored as possible replacements.

In 2001, New Zealander Cliff Curtis played Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in Blow.

In 2000, Andrew Garfield played Mark Zuckerberg's best friend, Brazilian student Eduardo Saverin, in The Social Network.

In 1993, Ethan Hawke played Fernando "Nando" Parrado in Alive. Parrado is an Uruguayan man who survived the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash of 1972.

How do you feel about non-Latinos being cast as Latino historical figures in movies? Some have criticized Ben Affleck, the director of Argo, for casting himself as the film's lead: Antonio "Tony" Mendez, a Latino CIA agent. Moctesuma Esparza, the producer of Selena, says that moviegoers were "denied of an opportunity for all Americans to learn of an American Latino's valor, talent and patriotism."

Over the years, a few non-Latino actors have played a real-life Latinos.