Aaron Sorkin defends Cuban casting, says gay actors only playing gay roles is 'a bad idea'

Aaron Sorkin is doubling down on his casting decisions for his new film "Being the Ricardos."

The writer/director's drama depicts "I Love Lucy" stars Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) as they battle a tumultuous week of production while struggling with relationship issues behind the curtain.

Sorkin has faced criticism for casting Bardem, a Spanish actor, to play the role of Desi Arnaz, who was Cuban.

In an interview with Britain's The Times newspaper published Sunday Sorkin called the feedback "heartbreaking and chilling."

"Spanish and Cuban are not actable. If I was directing you in a scene and said: ‘It’s cold, you can’t feel your face.’ That’s actable. But if I said: ‘Be Cuban.’ That is not actable. Nouns aren’t actable," he said.

Sorkin continued his response and drew comparison to straight actors playing gay characters, a much-debated topic when it comes to scarce representation of LGBTQ characters in major films.

"Gay and straight aren’t actable. You can act being attracted to someone, but can’t act gay or straight," he said. "So this notion that only gay actors should play gay characters? That only a Cuban actor should play Desi? Honestly, I think it’s the mother of all empty gestures and a bad idea."

Bardem previously responded to the pushback about his casting in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, saying that portraying a character he is not is part of his job as an actor.

"Why does this conversation happen with people with accents?" he said in the interview published Dec. 15. "Where is that conversation with English-speaking people doing things like 'The Last Duel,' where they were supposed to be French people in the Middle Ages? That’s fine. But me, with my Spanish accent, being Cuban?"

While all actors should be able to play all roles, in theory, actors and industry experts have raised concerns about this thinking.

Hollywood's casting dilemma: Should straight, cisgender actors play LGBTQ characters?

"It would be nice if there were enough LGBT roles that anyone could play them because there wasn't any scarcity of representation," Jane Ward, a gender and sexuality studies professor at the University of California, Riverside told USA TODAY November 2020. "However, that's not the case."

Straight actors playing queer roles is "something that we give certain people a pass for," says journalist Tre'vell Anderson, former director of culture and entertainment at Out magazine.

According to GLAAD's 2021 Studio Responsibility Index, 10 out of 44 major studio films contained LGBTQ characters.

Twitter users had much to say about Sorkin's latest comments.

"It's heartbreaking to see a screenwriter I was a fan of be deliberately obtuse towards people's valid criticisms," writer and MTV movies host Hannah Flint tweeted.

"I'm starting to think Aaron Sorkin, a famously rich straight white prima donna cisgender man, doesn't understand the struggle of being a gay/queer or poc in acting," another user wrote.

Another user tweeted: "Aaron Sorkin doesn't get it. There are Cuban actors out there who would have loved to play this role. I mean, nothing against Bardem."

Contributing: David Oliver

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Aaron Sorkin responds to Cuban casting criticism with LGBTQ comparison