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1[[quoteright:320:[[Creator/SeanConnery https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Sean_Connery_X4_5593.jpg]]]]
2[-[[caption-width-right:320: Sean Connery clockwise from top right: Egyptian (dressed as a Spaniard), Irish, [[AvertedTrope Scottish]], and [[PaperThinDisguise Japanese]] Film/JamesBond.[[note]]''Film/{{Highlander}}'', ''Film/TheUntouchables1987'', ''Film/TheAvengers1998'', ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice''[[/note]]]]-]
3
4->'''Chandler:''' Alright boys, I confess. I was Abie the fish peddler.\
5'''Ravelli:''' How did you get to be Roscoe W. Chandler?\
6'''Chandler:''' Say, how did you get to be an Italian?\
7'''Ravelli:''' Never mind. Whose confession is this?
8-->-- ''Theatre/AnimalCrackers''
9
10%%
11%% One quote is sufficient. Please place additional entries on the quotes tab.
12%%
13
14When an actor plays a native of a nationality or area other than their own. Not counting those actors who play an [[AlienTropes extraterrestrial]], who are ''never'' from the same place as their character. Probably. Nowadays can be known as ColorblindCasting (though that focuses more on the actor and character's race than their nationality).
15
16Israeli Jewish and Arab actors tend to wind up playing each other quite frequently (though Israeli-for-Arab is more common than the other way around). Gung-ho movies made during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII featured every kind of Asian ''except'' Japanese, since the Japanese-American actors [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory were otherwise occupied]]. Many Nazi characters were [[JewsPlayingNazis played by Jewish actors]], with some of the actors being European Jews who fled Nazi persecution. And very few Russian characters during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar were played by native Russians. For foreign actors who are frequently employed to play foreign characters, see PlaysGreatEthnics.
17
18This is much more common in voice-acting because the actor's appearance is irrelevant, and a ''good'' voice actor can hide their accent or imitate well a foreign one.
19
20TheQueensLatin is a related trope where characters in AncientGrome or other classical-to-medieval settings are usually played by Brits, no matter what part of Europe they're actually from. See also: {{Fauxreigner}} where the ''character'' is pretending to be a nationality they aren't (or acting more stereotypical than they actually usually do).
21
22If you are actually from the area in question, you may remember one or more of these examples as "That foreigner with a strange accent. [[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent Where are they supposed to be from]]?" On the other hand, [[SugarWiki/SurprisinglyGoodAccent some actors are really good at it]]. An added complication is that human appearance varies even within nationalities and ethnicities. As a result when playing a historical character the foreigner might have been selected because they greatly resembled the original.
23
24An actor who often does this well PlaysGreatEthnics. When done poorly, it can result in QuestionableCasting. Compare IronyAsSheIsCast.
25
26See PassFail when, for whatever reason, the actor isn't convincing as another nationality.
27----
28!!Sub-tropes:
29[[index]]
30* {{Blackface}}: Pretending to be of Black African ethnicity.
31* {{Brownface}}: Pretending to be of AmbiguouslyBrown ethnicity.
32* FakeAmerican: Pretending to be from the United States.
33* FakeAustralian: Pretending to be from Australia.
34* FakeBrit: Pretending to be from Britain (or more specifically England).
35** FakeScot: Pretending to be from Scotland.
36* FakeIrish: Pretending to be from Ireland.
37* FakeMixedRace: Pretending to belong to more than one ethnicity.
38* FakeRussian: Pretending to be from Russia (or some other ex-Soviet nation).
39* {{Fauxreigner}}: When a character tries to fake their nationality in-universe.
40* {{Yellowface}}: Pretending to be of East Asian ethnicity.
41[[/index]]
42----
43!!Examples:
44[[foldercontrol]]
45
46[[folder:Multiple examples]]
47* As mentioned above in the article, almost any fictional work set in AncientRome will invariably cast [[TheQueensLatin British actors as Romans]]. Creator/{{HBO}}'s ''Series/{{Rome}}'' in particular took this to the next level by not only casting British and Irish actors for all the Romans, but bringing a few actual Italians in... to play Germanic and Celtic characters. The same treatment also extends to Greek and Egyptian characters in other media with very few exceptions.
48* Good luck trying to find any actual Russians playing Russian characters in Western media. It's so common that there is [[FakeRussian an entire trope]] focusing on non-Russian actors in the roles of Russians and occasionally other nationalities that were part of the Soviet Union or satellites to it (e.g. Ukrainian, Georgian etc.).
49* Films [[BibleTimes based on]] Literature/TheBible tend not to have Middle Eastern actors, at least for the lead roles. This is probably because most Christians and Jews are non-Middle Eastern (or in the case of Jews, [[AllJewsAreAshkenazi sometimes seem not to be]]), and people expect to see their spiritual forebears portrayed as if they were their ethnic forebears too.
50[[/folder]]
51
52[[folder:Advertising]]
53* In 1991, Old Milwaukee Beer had a series of commercials featuring the "Swedish Bikini Team". The commercials played on the SexyScandinavian stereotype and every girl on the team was blonde, busty, and beautiful. In reality, the team was made up entirely of American models wearing platinum blonde wigs.
54* The Crying Indian was actually Sicilian. In this case however, it was a deliberate deception on the part of the actor, "Iron Eyes Cody" (Espera Oscar de Corti) rather than a producer or casting agent's decision.
55* Miss Cleo, the popular Psychic Readers Network spokeswoman, claimed to be a mystical shaman from Jamaica. Despite a notoriously [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxopPDMq7rs over-the-top]] [[OohMeAccentsSlipping and inconsistent]] Jamaican accent, it wasn't common knowledge that she was actually American, born and raised in Los Angeles, until her employer was sued by the FTC in 2002.
56* In 2006, Outback Steakhouse made a series of commercials in New Zealand starring Creator/JemaineClement, a native New Zealander, [[FakeAustralian doing an Australian accent]]. Served as sort of an in-joke for his family since his father actually is Australian.
57[[/folder]]
58
59[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
60* Whenever an anime features characters who aren't Japanese, all of the voice actors are still Japanese. The few half-foreign and foreign voice actors there are in Japan aren't limited to playing foreigners. In dubs into other languages, voice actors likewise aren't limited by their nationality or ethnicity.
61[[/folder]]
62
63[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
64* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove'': None of the characters are voiced by actual Peruvians, with most voiced by white people (Cuzco, Pacha, Kronk) or for Eartha Kitt who voiced Yzma who's black.
65* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'': Disney used Native American actors as the voice talent for the main Native American characters (Irene Bedard, Michelle St. John and Russell Means). But of course they cast Creator/MelGibson as the Englishman John Smith. The main (British) villain is also played by an American, Creator/DavidOgdenStiers.
66* ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' at least has three Chinese-Americans (Mulan, Shang, and Chi-Fu), otherwise Mushu is [[UncleTomfoolery African-American]], Shan Yu is Irish-Puerto Rican, Fa Zhou is Korean-American, Yao is Jewish-American, Chien-Po, Ling, the head Ancestor, and the Emperor are Japanese-American, Mulan's singing voice actor is Filipina, and Shang's singing voice actor is a white American.
67* ''WesternAnimation/ThePrinceOfEgypt'' has Jewish voice actors for Aaron (Creator/JeffGoldblum) and Yocheved (Creator/OfraHaza), but all the other characters are non-Jewish and non-Egyptian (Miriam's singing voice and her younger voice are provided by Jewish actresses Sally Dworsky and Creator/EdenRiegel, respectively).
68* ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'': While otherwise doing a good job at averting this, there are still some non-Canadian actors, such as the Americans Creator/JamesHong, Ava Morse, and Lori Tan Chinn. Additionally, Creator/SandraOh (Ming) is Korean Canadian, not Chinese Canadian.
69[[/folder]]
70
71[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
72* UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}} and UsefulNotes/{{France}} have theor own equivalent of LimeyGoesToHollywood, in that a ''lot'' of Belgian actors are cast in French films as French characters (overwhelmingly Walloons, who can speak French without accent), including the likes of Cécile de France, Creator/JeremieRenier, Creator/EmilieDequenne, Creator/BenoitPoelvoorde, Bouli Lanners, Yolande Moreau etc.
73* In Film/HighSchoolMusical, Creator/VanessaHudgens, who is of Filipino, Irish, Spanish, Chinese, and Native American descent portrays Mexican-American Gabriella Montes.
74* Creator/CliffCurtis, a New Zealander-Maori actor, is the epitome of this trope. has played characters who were Indian, Arab, Latino, Samoan, lightskin African-American etc. He has been described as Hollywood's "go-to guy" for ethnic portrayals.
75* The British-Jewish Creator/SachaBaronCohen has done this a lot and used it in his movies:
76** ''Film/{{Borat}}'': He's Kazakhstani. The "Kazakh" village in the movie is in Romania, as are the extras (who are Roma, or "Gypsies") playing Borat's family. His cameraman Azamat, was played be Ken Davitian, who is of Armenian descent.
77** In ''Film/BoratSubsequentMoviefilm'', Borat does this InUniverse, pretending to be a (very stereotypical) American. His co-star Maria Bakalova, who plays his daughter, is Bulgarian.
78** ''Film/{{Bruno}}'': An Austrian
79** ''Film/TalladegaNightsTheBalladOfRickyBobby'': He plays a Frenchman.
80* Spectacularly averted by the main cast in ''Film/ThoseMagnificentMenInTheirFlyingMachines''. Nearly every character in this cast of {{Funny Foreigner}}s is played by an actor or actress of their own nationality. Stuart Whitman plays the spirited CombatPragmatist American pilot Orvil, James Fox is the stuffy British eccentric Richard, Alberto Sordi is the devout and boisterous Italian Catholic, Creator/GertFrobe is the efficiency-obsessed Prussian, Creator/JeanPierreCassel is the suave Frenchman more interested in wooing beautiful women than actually competing, and Yujiro Ishihara plays... [[HiddenDepths an intelligent and articulate Japanese pilot with a love of fine scotch whiskey]].
81* Often crossed over with CreatorsCultureCarryover in Canadian "tax shelter films" of the 1970s and 80s, encompassing everything from ''Film/BlackChristmas1974'', to much of Creator/DavidCronenberg's early filmography. These films were usually set in the United States, since the films intended audience was there. Thus, the mostly-Canadian cast would be playing Americans, usually not even attempting to cover up their native accents. In rare cases where these films were explicitly set in Canada, they would nonetheless cast American or British leads in order to widen the film's international appeal. Thus, Americans would be playing Canadians.
82* Jin Yan was one of the most famous actors of early Chinese cinema, appearing in ''Film/PeachBlossomWeepsTearsOfBlood'', ''Film/WildRose1932'', and many other productions over a span of 30 years, 1928-1958. He was called the "Film Emperor". He was Korean.
83* The 2000 Korean movie ''Film/JointSecurityArea'':
84** Korean actress Yeong-ae Lee plays Swiss army Major Sophie E. Jean, who's supposed to have grown up in Switzerland. The film includes some daring stunt linguistics with Sophie opposite a more senior Swiss officer, played by Christoph Hofrichter (who is German). For some reason, they speak mainly English. He gives a reasonable approximation of a Swiss German accent. She just has a thick Korean accent.
85** The same movie has a Swedish officer played by a German actor. The looks work, the [[MisplacedAccent accent doesn't]].
86* ''Film/TheMalayChroniclesBloodlines'', a 2010s Malaysian epic film, has a Roman Prince played by Gavin Steinhouse, an Australian actor. In fact, ''all'' the Romans who appeared in the film are Australians, loaned by a boarding school in Kuala Lumpur where the students are more than eager to be part of an epic film. In a slightly more downplayed example, the film also has a Chinese admiral played by Craig Fong, a Britian-born Chinese.
87* Very cleverly and subtly spoofed in the Creator/JimCarrey film ''Film/TheMajestic'', set in [[TheFifties the 1950s]]. In the [[ShowWithinAShow movie-within-the-movie]], ''Sand Pirates of the Sahara'', the villain is "The Evil but Handsome Prince Khalid" who is played by B-movie actor "Ramon Jamon". "Ramon Jamon" is played by Cliff Curtis, a Polynesian Maori from New Zealand, who has made a career out of [[PlaysGreatEthnics playing various ethnicities]].
88* Creator/PeterSellers played ...
89** ...Indian characters in ''Film/TheParty'', ''Film/TheMillionairess'' and ''Film/TheRoadToHongKong''...
90** a Viennese psychiatrist in ''Film/WhatsNewPussycat''.
91** ...the eponymous German MadScientist and the US President in ''Film/DoctorStrangelove'' (as well as British Group Captain Mandrake, though that one wasn't ''fake''),
92** ...the American playwright Clare Quilty in ''Film/{{Lolita}}'', and the American gardener Chance in ''Film/BeingThere'',
93** ...the French [[Franchise/ThePinkPanther Inspector Clouseau]],
94** ...the Chinese Sidney Wang and Literature/FuManchu in the parodies ''Film/MurderByDeath'' and ''The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu'', respectively (acknowledging how common this trope was in the days of Asian characters like Film/CharlieChan),
95** ...the Spaniard hero in ''Film/TheBobo''.
96** ...the Italian thief in ''Film/AfterTheFox'', and he impersonates an American tourist at one point...
97** ...the Japanese Hirohito in ''Soft Beds, Hard Battles'' (one of 6 roles, also including a Frenchman, 1 German, 1 Austrian - Hitler)
98* In ''Film/TheQuietAmerican'' (1958), the Vietnamese heroine, Phuong, is played by Italian actress Giorgia Moll, and her sister by reputedly Algerian (actually French) actress Kerima. Likewise, the Viet Cong leader is played by Chinese-American actor Creator/RichardLoo.
99** The 2002 remake also casts a Chinese-American actor (Creator/TziMa) as the Viet Cong character, as well as the Croatian Rade Šerbedžija as a French police inspector.
100* Creator/MickeyRooney as Holly's awfully stereotyped, YellowFace Japanese neighbor in ''Film/BreakfastAtTiffanys''. While he claimed in an interview that East Asians found his portrayal funny, he later expressed regret and stated that he wouldn't have done the role if he knew people would be offended in the long term.
101* Creator/BenKingsley, a Brit of Indian ancestry, has played...
102** ...[[UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin Lenin]] in ''Lenin: The Train''.
103** ...Moses in ''Moses''.
104** ...[[UsefulNotes/MahatmaGandhi Gandhi]] in ''Film/{{Gandhi}}''.
105** ...a Hispanic in ''Film/DeathAndTheMaiden''.
106** ...an Iranian in ''Literature/HouseOfSandAndFog''.
107** ...a Polish Jew in ''Film/SchindlersList''.
108** ...Otto Frank (father of [[Theatre/TheDiaryOfAnneFrank Anne]]), a German Jew, in ''Series/AnneFrankTheWholeStory''.
109** ...the German ''Adolf Eichmann'' in ''Film/OperationFinale''.
110** ...a Māori in the ''Film/EndersGame'' film.
111** ...a Persian in ''Film/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'' and ''The Physician''.
112** ...the French Georges Meliès in ''{{Film/Hugo}}''.
113** ...Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy in ''Walking with the Enemy''.
114** The Mandarin (a character usually associated with the region in China) in ''Film/IronMan3''. [[spoiler:Though it's a ruse, and the Mandarin is actually a hired British actor, making this an in-story example.]]
115** ...an Egyptian Pharaoh in ''[[Film/NightAtTheMuseum Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb]]''.
116** ...and an American in half a dozen movies.
117* The American actor Creator/TonyShalhoub, who is of Lebanese descent, is often hired to play Italians (''Series/{{Wings}}'', ''Big Night'', ''Cars'') due to his curly dark hair and swarthy Mediterranean features.
118** Lampshaded in a ''Series/{{Wings}}'' episode: "Joe, please explain to the nice man with the gun that I am not a Libyan terrorist."
119** Shalhoub memorably created an entire language ''and'' accent for his cab-driver character in the comedy film ''Film/QuickChange''. (Or it would be memorable if anyone had ever seen the flick.)
120** Shalhoub's character of Fred Kwan spoofed this practice in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' when he mentioned that Kwan is a stage name used to fit his character of Tech Sergeant Chen's Asian nationality. Interestingly, when the Thermians are naming the crew, he narrows his eyes when his character's name is spoken. Apparently, that's supposed to be enough to make him seem Chinese.
121* 1999's ''Film/{{The Mummy|1999}}'' is a festival of Fake Nationality. Its Egyptian/Arabic characters include Ardeth Bey (portrayed by Israeli Oded Fehr), professor Terrance Bey (Erick Avari, British-Indian), Gad Hassan (Omid Djalili, British-Iranian), and of course its titular mummy Imhotep, played by Creator/ArnoldVosloo (Afrikaner South African) as well as his ancient girlfriend Anck Su Namun (Patricia Velasquez, Venezuelan). ''Film/TheMummyReturns'' adds in Film/TheScorpionKing, played by Creator/DwayneJohnson (Samoan–Black Canadian–American).
122** It gets better: Arab-British Evelyn Carnahan (she states her mother was Egyptian) is played by Jewish-English actress Creator/RachelWeisz, while her brother (presumably from the same mother) is played by Scottish actor John Hannah, and American Rick O'Connell, is played by Canadian Brendan Fraser. Fehr himself is something of an expert in Fake Nationality, as he also played Saudi terror mastermind Faris Al-Farik in the TV show ''Sleeper Cell''. His character in ''Sleeper Cell'' even lampshades this by pretending to be Jewish.
123** There's also Benny, who according to [[AllThereInTheManual supplemental materials]] is supposed to be Hungarian, is played by Chicago-born Irish-American Kevin J. O'Connor.
124* The 2017 ''Film/{{The Mummy|2017}}'' again has a mummy that is African but not Egyptian, with Princess Ahmahnet played by an Algerian, Creator/SofiaBoutella.
125* The 2018 film ''Film/TheLie'' has Canadian actors Cas Anvar and Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs. Anvar's character Sam is established to be of Pakistani origin. Anvar is the son of Iranian parents. Yet the actress playing his daughter is indigenous. Jacobs was born in Kahnawa:ke Mohawk territory.
126* Italian-American Creator/AlPacino as Cuban Tony Montana in ''Film/{{Scarface 1983}}'', although there were some actual Cuban (Creator/StevenBauer) and other Latino actors. To be fair, in the credits, they denounce all the criminal acts in the film, and state that Cubans are hard-working people.
127* Yet another Israeli, Creator/MarkIvanir, a Soviet-born Russian Jewish immigrant, is a master of Fake Nationality. A partial list follows: a Pole in ''Film/SchindlersList'', a French mercenary in ''Walker Texas Ranger'', a German in ''Series/{{Monk}}'', a Yugoslavian in ''Film/TheTerminal'', and a Greek in ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}''.
128* In ''Film/{{Moonstruck}}'', the Italian-American Castorini family includes Music/{{Cher}} (Armenian-American), Creator/OlympiaDukakis (Greek-American), and Feodor Chaliapin (Russian).
129* ''Film/TheMaskOfZorro'' gives us Creator/AnthonyHopkins and Creator/CatherineZetaJones (both Welsh) as the original Don Diego and his daughter. Spanish-born Creator/AntonioBanderas plays a Mexican... who goes undercover as a Spaniard. The antagonists of the film - evil governor Don Rafael Montero (probably Spanish as it takes place during the war of independence) - and its sequel - FrenchJerk Count Armand - are played by Englishmen.
130* The Spanish Antonio Banderas:
131** Plays a Mexican again in ''Film/{{Desperado}}'' and its sequel, in which he played El Mariachi.
132** Plays a Chilean in ''The 33'', where in spite of being about Chilean miners who got trapped after a collapse, only two actors are from the country (meanwhile there are Americans, Colombians, Mexicans, a Frenchwoman and a Brazilian).
133* In the [[Film/DieHard first]] and [[Film/DieHardWithAVengeance third]] ''Franchise/DieHard'' movies, Englishmen Creator/AlanRickman and Creator/JeremyIrons played German terrorist brothers Hans and Simon Gruber. A scene was added to the first film when the producers discovered how well Rickman could also fake an ''American'' accent.
134* ''Film/{{Highlander}}'': The Scottish Sean Connery plays an Egyptian masquerading as a Scotsman. Frenchman Creator/ChristopherLambert plays a Scotsman and tries his best to hide his accent, which gets called out in the film. The Kurgan, hailing from Neolithic Russia, is played by an American, Creator/ClancyBrown.
135* Creator/SeanConnery:
136** Plays [[{{Scotireland}} playing Irish-Americans]] in ''Film/FamilyBusiness'', ''Film/DarbyOGillAndTheLittlePeople'' ''Film/TheUntouchables1987'', and ''Film/TheLongestDay''.
137** In ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', a portion of the plot revolved around making Connery into a Japanese guy. All they really did was dye his hair black, use eyeliner to fake epicanthic folds, and dress him in a kimono. And while Film/JamesBond is English, Creator/IanFleming eventually made him the son of a Scotsman specifically on the account of Connery.
138** In ''Film/TheNameOfTheRose'' he plays the Englishman William of Baskerville, whom Creator/UmbertoEco created as a composite of Literature/SherlockHolmes, William of Ockham, and Roger Bacon.
139* Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger's roles usually don't bother explaining his accent, but some explanations differ from his actual Austrian-American background:
140** He's a former East German in ''Film/{{Commando}}''
141** In ''Film/RedHeat'', his thick Austrian accent is twisted into a [[FakeRussian thick Russian accent]], since most viewers won't be able to tell the difference.
142* In the film ''Film/ThePeacemaker'', with Creator/GeorgeClooney, the Bosnian terrorist trying to nuke the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations building is played by Marcel Iureº, a Romanian.
143* Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme is another actor that's prone to playing other nationalities than his own Belgian, especially American. Much like Arnold, he rarely [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent bothers with anything but his own Belgian accent]], even when playing American Colonel Guile in the ''Film/StreetFighter'' movie.
144** Very few Belgians have the 'Belgian accents' depicted in movies. Most Belgian Francophones have an accent similar to that of Northern France (not including Paris). In Belgium, the stereotypical 'Belgian accent' tends to be either played for laughs or bashed mercilessly; the few people who do have this accent often face prejudice. Van Damme has used a few variations of his French accent including Cajun (''Film/UniversalSoldier'', ''Film/HardTarget'') or French-Canadian (''Film/SuddenDeath''). Not mentioning ''Legionnaire'', where he is French.
145** In ''Film/DoubleImpact'' he plays twins of who were orphaned at birth by gangsters who killed their British parents. The French accent of both is explained by one twin baby being taken in and raised by French nuns (in Hong Kong!) while the other was taken to France to hide him from the gangsters, and raised there.
146* Erick Avari, an Indian who grew up in the Himalayan foothills, has played members of over 24 nationalities, including ancient Egyptian in both the original ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' movie and in ''Series/StargateSG1''.
147* Creator/VinDiesel's indeterminate ethnic phenotype allows him to convincingly play many different nationalities, from Italian-American to ancient Carthaginian.
148* Creator/PeterStormare, a Swede, has made a career out of playing just about every European nationality, from Spanish to Russian; has also been FakeAmerican and even Fake Mexican.
149* ''Film/JamesBond'' has many examples.
150** In ''Film/DrNo'', the titular villain was Chinese-German, played by a Jewish Canadian actor.
151** Both ''Film/LiveAndLetDie'' and ''Film/LicenceToKill'' feature many characters who are nationals of fictitious countries.
152** In ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'', the minor villain Chang has a Chinese name, but was played by a Japanese actor.
153** ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'' has three fake Greeks, a fake Belgian, two fake East Germans and a fake Russian, at least. That's before we get to the Liverpudlian character who's putting on an Austrian accent.
154** Creator/VincentSchiavelli, an Italian-American, stole his brief scene in ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies'' as the German Dr. Kaufman.
155** ''Film/NoTimeToDie'' has Creator/DavidDencik (Swedish-Danish) and Creator/RamiMalek (American of Egyptian descent) as {{fake Russian}}s.
156* American Creator/DonCheadle played a Fake Rwandan in the movie ''Film/HotelRwanda''. And got an Oscar nomination for it.
157* ''Film/ThreeHundred'':
158** Very few members of the Persian army even look Persian, much less are played by Persians. Xerxes is played by a Brazillian.
159** The Spartans are played predominantly by British and Irish actors rather than Greeks. They speak [[TheQueensLatin the Queen's Latin]]. Fittingly, when Spartan dialogue in classic literature was translated into English, it was usually given a Scottish FunetikAksent to evoke the similar stereotypes embodied by the Spartans and Scots in their respective cultures.
160* ''Film/OnceUponATimeInAmerica'' is about Jewish-American mobsters in [[TheRoaringTwenties the 1920s]] and [[TheGreatDepression 30s]] yet almost none of the characters are played by actual Jewish actors, with the exceptions of Larry Rapp as Moe, Estelle Harris as Peggy's mother, and Creator/JenniferConnelly as young Deborah.
161* ''Film/{{Sniper}} 2'' had Creator/TomBerenger as the titular sniper battling villainous Hungarian-speaking Serbs in Cuban-style military uniforms through the streets of Budapest, Serbia (the actual capital is Belgrade, Budapest is the capital of ''Hungary''). Three cheers for looking up basic facts on the Internet...
162* In ''Film/BehindEnemyLines'', all of the Serbian characters were portrayed by Croatian actors.
163* Creator/GerardButler, a Scot, as Attila the Hun, who historically would have come from as far East as modern Mongolia, in the dramatized ''Series/{{Attila}}''.
164* ''Film/TheConqueror'' has Creator/JohnWayne playing UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan.
165* Subverted by Peter [=MacNicol's=] character Janosz in ''Film/GhostbustersII'': He spouts a bizarre accent throughout the movie, and when someone finally asks him where he's from, he replies in confusion: "The upper vest side."
166* Creator/PierceBrosnan is so well known for playing Film/JamesBond that many people are surprised to find out he is actually Irish (and not British). Brosnan himself seems to have [[IAmNotSpock gotten tired of this]] and most of his more recent films have him play Irish, or Irish-American, or simply an [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent Irish accented American]]. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Film/AfterTheSunset'':
167-->'''Creator/WoodyHarrelson:''' It's okay to be happy to see me. Just because you're English doesn't mean you need to hide your emotions.\
168'''Creator/PierceBrosnan:''' I'm Irish. We let people know how we feel. Now f*ck off.
169* Creator/CaryElwes, an Englishman, plays Americans in ''Film/{{Twister}}'', ''Film/KissTheGirls'' and ''Film/HotShots''.
170* ''Film/YoungFrankenstein'' has three Transylvanian characters (Transylvania is part of Romania). In ascending order: Inga (Creator/TeriGarr, American), Frau Blucher ''[WHINNY]'' (Creator/ClorisLeachman, American) and Inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars, American). Plus all the folks playing the villagers.
171* ''Film/YouDontMessWithTheZohan'':
172** The American Creator/AdamSandler plays the Israeli titular character. Though it's somewhat of a subversion since like the character, he is Jewish.
173** Creator/EmmanuelleChriqui, a Canadian of Sephardic (Jewish) Moroccan descent plays the Palestinian hair salon owner and LoveInterest of Adam Sandler.
174** The Italian-American Creator/JohnTurturro plays a Palestinian terrorist.
175** Creator/RobSchneider, an American of Filipino and Jewish descent, plays a Palestinian cab driver who bears a grudge against Zohan for taking his goat.
176* Creator/JeanReno was born in Morocco to Spanish Andalusian parents who moved to France after World War II and is commonly known as a French actor. Apparently, that range has driven producers to see fit to cast him as Italian (in ''Film/TheProfessional''), German (in ''Film/MissionImpossible'') and Belgian (in ''Film/HotelRwanda''). He also played an Italian (Enzo) in ''Film/TheBigBlue'' (which was produced in France). and an Iraqi in the Italian film, ''The Tiger and the Snow''.
177* Creator/FamkeJanssen has never played a Dutch character.
178* Creator/RutgerHauer only played Dutch characters while working in his native [[UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands Netherlands]], never in Hollywood.
179* Creator/JulietteBinoche played a Bosnian woman in Anthony Minghella's ''Breaking And Entering'', occasionally speaking her "native language" with a strong French accent. She was also the French-accented Czech (or Slovak?) Tereza in ''Literature/TheUnbearableLightnessOfBeing''.
180* Creator/RadeSerbedzija's international career has consisted of playing all kinds of fake nationalities, usually [[FakeRussian Russians]] (''Film/TheSaint1997'', ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'', ''Film/{{Snatch}}'', ''Film/SpaceCowboys'', ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]''), but he's also played a Czech (''Duet''), a Greek (''The Truce''), an Albanian (''Film/Taken2''), an Italian (''Film/{{Stigmata}}''), and the FakeAmerican homeless guy from ''Film/BatmanBegins''. He's actually Croatian.
181* Russian Oleg Menshikov and Lithuanian Ingeborga Dapkunaite played a Bosnian Serb and a Bosnian Muslim, respectively, in ''Series/PrimeSuspect 6: The Last Witness''.
182* Creator/ChristopherLee played all kinds of fake nationalities, including Chinese. Being a prolific actor capable of speaking many languages helped. His favorite role he ever played was the Gujarati-born founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. And despite not being remotely South Asian, he pulled it off pretty well, mainly because he was a [[http://www.asiancommunity.net/Assets%20Folder/Jinnah%203_r.jpg dead ringer]] for [[http://www.dfp.gov.pk/UploadedPhotos/QuaidAzimMuhammadAliJinnah%20(5).jpg Jinnah]].
183* Jewish American Creator/MandyPatinkin plays Inigo, a [[DashingHispanic Spaniard]], in ''Film/ThePrincessBride''. Another Jewish American, Creator/WallaceShawn, played Italian Vizzini, and wrestler/actor Wrestling/AndreTheGiant, born in France to Bulgarian and Polish parents, played the Turk Fezzik.
184* Dark skinned, dark-haired Jewish American New Yorker Creator/EliWallach made a career out of playing all kinds of darker white characters and people of color, usually pulling it off very well. He has played:
185** Sicilian Silva Vacarro in ''Film/BabyDoll''.
186** Italian American Guido in ''Film/TheMisfits''.
187** Greek Stratos in ''Film/TheMoonSpinners''
188** Calvera-ish French-speaking "half-breed Arab" warlord "The General" in the 1964 adaptation of ''Film/LordJim''.
189** Mexicans Calvera in ''Film/TheMagnificentSeven1960'', Tuco in ''Film/TheGoodtheBadandtheUgly'' and Max in ''Don't Turn the Other Cheek''.
190** Greek-Cherokee-Mexican bandit Cacopoulos in the '68 Western ''Film/AceHigh''.
191** French (UsefulNotes/{{Napoleon|Bonaparte}} I, to be exact) in ''Film/TheAdventuresofGerard''.
192** Russian in ''Film/RomanceOfAHorseThief''.
193** And another Italian American, Don Altobello, in ''Film/TheGodfatherPartIII''. And many, many others.
194* In Film/RamonaAndBeezus, Selena Gomez, who is of Mexican and Italian descent, portrays fully-white Beezus.
195* The Welsh actor Hugh Griffith played various English characters in Shakespearean theater and English and French characters on film. He had a ''tour de force'' performance as the Arab Sheikh Ilderim in ''Film/BenHur1959'' and was nominated for a Tony for playing American Southerner W.O. Gant in ''Look Homeward Angel''. He did get to play Welshmen now and then.
196* Creator/JohnRhysDavies, the Anglo-Welsh actor, has played a Portuguese sea captain (Rodrigues in ''Shogun''), an Egyptian (Sallah in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''), a Frenchman (Porthos in two different productions, and a Norman knight in one production of Film/{{Ivanhoe}}), a [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Dwarf]], Americans, Creator/LeonardoDaVinci (on ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'') and occasionally a generic Englishman. Despite all this, he's still respectful of his heritage and has even performed in Welsh for TV. He especially insists he's English in several ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' episodes. Once, when he's mistaken for Music/LucianoPavarotti, and again when he's asked by Rembrandt if he can fish. "I'm English. We invented fishing."
197* While we're in ''Franchise/IndianaJones'': Creator/AlisonDoody said she didn't expect to play Elsa in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', "since they were asking for an Austrian 30-year-old, not an Irish 22-year-old". Also, the only villain with his or her own nationality is Mola Ram: Paul Freeman and Creator/RonaldLacey are British, Belloq is French and Toht is [[ThoseWackyNazis German]]; Creator/JulianGlover is British, Donovan is American (but considering he played a Greek ''Film/JamesBond'' [[Film/ForYourEyesOnly villain]]...); and Creator/CateBlanchett is Australian, [[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull Irina Spalko]] is [[DirtyCommunists Soviet]] - [[FakeRussian Ukraine]], actually.
198** Glover's (natural?) Scottish-sounding accent [[OohMeAccentsSlipping slips]] in a scene near the end, when he is saying: "The Nazis want to write themselves into the Grail legend....take on the world." I don't think this hurts the film too much; I just took it to mean that Donovan either was an immigrant or had one or two foreign-born parents, and so grew up with that accent before he tried to change it.
199* Nearly every SpaghettiWestern ever filmed has Spaniards playing Mexicans, since they were shot in Spain and Spanish actors were more readily available than genuine Mexicans. Also, for obvious reasons, Italians played characters from both sides of the border. And then, in a class by himself, we have New Yorker [Creator/EliWallach as Tuco Ramirez, "[[Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly The Ugly]]".
200* Creator/AlfredMolina is a London-born actor whose father and mother are from Spain and Italy, respectively. He has played:
201** Russian in ''Anna Karenina'' and ''Letter to Brezhnev''.
202** South American (Peruvian?) in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''.
203** Iranian in ''Not Without My Daughter'' (and claims he was punched in the face by an actual Iranian as a result).
204** Cuban in ''Film/ThePerezFamily''.
205** French in ''Film/{{Chocolat}}''.
206** Mexican in ''Film/{{Frida}}'' and ''Film/{{Maverick}}''
207** Puerto Rican in ''Nothing Like The Holidays''.
208** American in ''Film/SpiderMan2'' and ''Film/{{Identity}}''.
209** Canadian in ''Film/DudleyDoRight''.
210** Spanish in ''Film/TheDaVinciCode''.
211** And Molina's character in ''Film/BoogieNights'', Rahad Jackson, was loosely based on Palestinian-born Eddie Nash (née Adel Gharib Nasrallah).
212** Russian Jew in ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'' (on stage).
213* Creator/GaryOldman, a famous British actor, has played numerous American characters over the years (i.e. ''Film/{{JFK}}'', ''Film/TheProfessional'', ''Film/TheFifthElement'' and ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'') as well as Russian (''Film/AirForceOne''), Romanian/Transylvanian (''Film/BramStokersDracula''), German (''Immortal Beloved'') and Scandinavian (''Film/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead'').
214* British actor and director Creator/KennethBranagh not only is often cast as American, he also played the FakeRussian [[BigBad Big Bads]] in ''Film/JackRyanShadowRecruit'' and ''Film/{{Tenet}}'', Germans from the Third Reich in ''Film/{{Valkyrie}}'' and ''Film/Conspiracy2001'' and the Danish physician Nils Bohr in ''Film/{{Oppenheimer}}''. He also stars as Belgian derective Franchise/HerculePoirot in a [[Film/HerculePoirotKennethBranagh series of films based on the books]] by Creator/AgathaChristie.
215* The 1998 adaptation of ''Film/TheManInTheIronMask'' featured an eclectic array of fake Frenchmen. Most notable were Englishman Creator/JeremyIrons as Aramis, Irishman Creator/GabrielByrne as D'Artagnan, American Creator/JohnMalkovich as Athos, American Creator/PeterSarsgaard as his son, and American Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio as King Louis XIV, none of whom particularly bothered to disguise their country of origin. This was made particularly noticeable by having an actual Frenchman, Creator/GerardDepardieu, round out the cast. Hilariously, the only accents that ''did'' match were John Malkovich and Peter Sarsgaard, playing father and son, and only because both men happen to hail from UsefulNotes/StLouis.
216* In ''[[Creator/MarcelProust Time Regained]]'', Creator/JohnMalkovich plays Baron de Charlus, ''entirely in French'', going the trope one better. Some reviewers noted that the halting style of a non-native speaker worked in his favor for a scene late in the film, in its present, where Charlus has gone senile.
217* Conversely, Creator/JeremyIrons' turn in the title role in ''Swann in Love'' almost two decades earlier was dubbed into French, along with that of the Italian who played Odette, because neither of them spoke the language well enough.
218* Creator/JohnMalkovich played le Vicomte de Valmont in ''Literature/DangerousLiaisons'' but then topped his two French characters by playing the ''King of France'' Charles VII in ''Film/TheMessengerTheStoryOfJoanOfArc''.
219* He also played Uruguayan Carlitos at the beginning of ''Film/{{Alive}}''.
220* Swedish actor Creator/StellanSkarsgard has played characters who are German (conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in ''Taking Sides''), Saxon (Cerdic in ''Film/KingArthur2004''), ambiguously French (Lambeau in ''Film/GoodWillHunting''), presumably British (Bootstrap Bill Turner in ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean''), and Spanish (Creator/FranciscoDeGoya in ''Film/GoyasGhosts''). He also has several {{Fake Russian}}s on his resume.
221** Yet Skarsgård is the sole Swede in the main cast of ''Film/TheGirlWithTheDragonTattoo2011'' (four others, including Creator/JoelKinnaman, have smaller roles), which features lots of Brits and Americans speaking with Swedish accents.
222* An odd aversion occurred in the film ''Film/ShatteredGlass''. The real Kambiz Foroohar is Iranian-American. Upon watching himself portrayed in the movie, he posted an entry on a popular Iranian-American blog lamenting that although he was the first Iranian character depicted on film after 9/11, he had been portrayed as "generic ethnic guy", by an actor he had been told by the film's producers was Indian-Canadian. The "Indian-Canadian" actor in question then wrote into the same blog and clarified that actually, he ''was'' Iranian as well. Awkward...
223* Tony Randall played the titular Chinese wizard in ''Film/SevenFacesOfDrLao''. Although as the title also implies, the character can appear in pretty much whatever form he wants.
224* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'':
225** Creator/HalleBerry attempted a strange Kenyan accent for Storm (an actual African) in the first ''Film/XMen1'' film, although she dropped it after this film.[[note]]It seemed to be a (poor) imitation of the rather odd British-African accent American Iona Morris used for [[WesternAnimation/XMenTheAnimatedSeries the 1992 cartoon series]].[[/note]] Canadian Wolverine is played by an [[Creator/HughJackman Australian]]; Magneto (Polish) is played by an [[Creator/IanMcKellen Englishman]]; German Nightcrawler is [[Creator/AlanCumming Scottish]].
226** ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' features German-Irish Creator/MichaelFassbender as Magneto (who according to the comics is either German or Polish, but definitely not Irish).
227** Played straight in ''Film/TheWolverine'' with Korean Will Yun Lee playing Japanese Kenuichio Harada. Averted with all the other plot-important Japanese characters who are portrayed by actual Japanese actors.
228** ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' has Mexican Adan Canto as Sunspot (Brazillian) and Canadian Brendan Pedder as Apocalypse (Egyptian).
229** ''Film/XMenApocalypse'': The eponymous villain is now played by the Guatemalan-American Creator/OscarIsaac, an Australian as Nightcrawler, and another American as a young Storm.
230** Despite the multiple British actors playing American characters throughout the X-Men movies, ironically the one British X-Man, ComicBook/{{Psylocke}}, has only been played by American actresses: Meiling Meloncon in ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'' and Creator/OliviaMunn in ''Apocalpse''. (though the latter's Asian heritage fits how Psylocke [[GrandTheftMe is effectively in a Japanese woman's body]])
231** ''Film/{{Logan}}'': [[ComicBook/{{X 23}} Laura]] is the child of an unknown Mexican woman who was impregnated with Logan's genetic material. She's played by Creator/DafneKeen, who is mixed English and Spanish.
232** ''Film/TheNewMutants'' has Brazilian Alice Braga as the American of Puerto Rican descent Cecilia Reyes.
233* The Australian who played Wolverine, Creator/HughJackman, has been a FakeBrit (''Film/KateAndLeopold'', ''Film/ThePrestige'', a voice role in ''WesternAnimation/FlushedAway''), FakeAmerican (most of his roles, such as ''Film/{{Swordfish}}''), Dutch (if ''Film/VanHelsing'' is like [[{{Literature/Dracula}} Van Helsing]]) and French (''Film/LesMiserables2012''). Probably his only post-Wolverine roles featuring his true nationality are, appropriatedly, ''Film/{{Australia}}'' and as the Australian Easter Bunny in ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians''.
234* In ''Film/ShortCircuit'' and its sequel, Fisher Stevens (an American Jew) plays the Indian-American Ben in {{brownface}}.
235* ''Film/TheEnglishPatient'' has Creator/JulietteBinoche (French) as Hana (French-Canadian); Creator/WillemDafoe (US American) as Caravaggio (Canadian); and Naveen Andrews (British Indian) as Kip (an Indian Sikh). Creator/RalphFiennes, who plays the title (Hungarian) character, is English.
236* ''Film/MightyJoeYoung'': Naveen Andrews plays an African. Add [[Series/{{Lost}} an Arab]], that's three ethnicities by the same guy.
237* Elsewhere, Willem Dafoe has played a Mexican in ''Film/OnceUponATimeInMexico'' and Jesus in ''Film/TheLastTemptationofChrist''.
238* The early '80s film ''Film/NightCrossing'', about a family that escaped UsefulNotes/EastGermany by balloon, featured British actors in the main adult roles, Americans as the kids, and Germans in practically every other role.
239* ''Film/SlumdogMillionaire''[='=]s titular Mumbai "slumdog" is played by (ethnically Indian) Briton Dev Patel.
240* The pan-Scandinavian movie ''Film/IAmDina'', set in nineteenth century rural Norway, featured illustrious actors from all three countries and then some - like Gérard Depardieu, playing one of the male leads. For the sake of realism (one assumes), it was decided to do this in English. The result was hotly debated, but the biggest irony was probably that the only English actor, Creator/ChristopherEccleston, was cast as a ''Russian''.
241* This caused a mild uproar in the US (and a huge uproar in Asia) when Chinese actresses Creator/ZhangZiyi and Gong Li and Chinese-Malaysian Creator/MichelleYeoh were cast as Japanese characters in ''Film/MemoirsOfAGeisha''. The film was BannedInChina and Zhang stated that it was like an American faking a French accent while speaking Russian (they performed in English with fake Japanese accents).
242* ''Film/BramStokersDracula'':
243** Creator/KeanuReeves (a Canadian of British, Chinese, Hawaiian and Portuguese descent) and Creator/WinonaRyder (an American Ashkenazi Jew) play British characters.
244** Like with many of his roles, Creator/GaryOldman plays the Romanian {{Dracula}}.
245** Welshman Anthony Hopkins plays the Dutch Van Helsing.
246* The cast of the 2006 film adaptation of ''Literature/{{Perfume}}: Story of a Murderer'' has British actors/actresses, and German actresses playing Frenchmen/women. Only Creator/DustinHoffman, an American, was playing an Italian living in France.
247* ''Film/{{Novecento}}'' is set in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna with a huge amount of characters. It's AllStarCast includes American (Creator/RobertDeNiro, Creator/SterlingHayden, Creator/BurtLancaster), French (Creator/GerardDepardieu, Dominique Sanda), one lone Canadian (Creator/DonaldSutherland), and German actors playing the locals (Werner Bruhns, Anna Henkel-Grönemeyer, Ellen Schwiers).
248* ''Film/TheGodfather'' has several Italian-American characters played by non-Italian actors, including Creator/MarlonBrando (German, Dutch, Irish, English), Creator/JamesCaan (German-Jewish), Abe Vigoda (Russian Jewish), Richard Bright (Scottish), and Eli Wallach (Polish-Jewish). It also, ironically, stars Italian-American actor Alex Rocco as KosherNostra Moe Greene.
249* The 1978 film adaptation of ''Literature/TheBoysFromBrazil'' features Creator/GregoryPeck (American) as the German Josef Mengele and Creator/LaurenceOlivier (British) as Austrian Jew Ezra Lieberman.
250* In Creator/RidleyScott's ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'', Kurdish Saladin is played by Syrian Arab Ghassan Massoud.
251** Also, the French characters were played by Orlando Bloom (English), Creator/LiamNeeson (Irish), Creator/BrendanGleeson (Irish), Marton Czokas (New Zealander), Creator/JeremyIrons (English), Creator/DavidThewlis (English), Creator/KevinMcKidd (Scottish) and Creator/MichaelSheen (Welsh) to name a few. The only actual French person was Eva Green.
252* ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' is another festival of Fake Nationality, mostly of [[FakeAmerican British actors pretending to be American]], such as Creator/ChristianBale, Creator/GaryOldman, and Tom Wilkinson. Other Fake Americans include Irishmen Creator/CillianMurphy and Creator/LiamNeeson (note: it was never stated Ducard was American, but Neeson uses an American accent), Dutch Creator/RutgerHauer, and Australians Creator/HeathLedger and Ben Mendelssohn. In fact, the only actual principal American actors on set were Creator/MorganFreeman, Katie Holmes, Creator/MaggieGyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart. Singaporean Chinese actor Chin Han played the Chinese Lau, and French actress Beatric Rosen pulled a FakeRussian as Natascha, prima ballerina of the Moscow Ballet. The third film retcons Ducard as vaguely Middle Eastern, though he doesn't look the part. It's also possible he was simply an American in the employ of the warlord. [[spoiler:And his daughter is played by a Frenchwoman who passes as FakeAmerican.]] And from the same place comes Bane (half-British and half-Latin American in the comics), played by a Brit.
253* Irishman Creator/LiamNeeson also played a Scot in ''Film/RobRoy'', a German in ''Film/SchindlersList'' a Frenchman in ''Film/LesMiserables1998'', and a (presumably) Spanish Jesuit in ''Film/TheMission''. He again played an American in the ''Film/{{Taken}}'' series.
254* Creator/MerylStreep has portrayed multiple nationalities other than her American one:
255** Polish in ''Film/SophiesChoice''.
256** Italian in ''Film/TheBridgesOfMadisonCounty''.
257** New Zealand-born Australian in ''Film/EvilAngels'' (AKA ''A Cry in the Dark'').
258** Danish in ''Film/OutOfAfrica''.
259** British in ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (though only her ShowWithinAShow character), ''Plenty'', and as UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher in ''Film/TheIronLady''.
260** Irish in ''Dancing at Lughnasa''.
261** Portuguese in ''Film/{{Silence}}''
262* Creator/AudreyHepburn, born to British and Dutch parents, played American (''Film/BreakfastAtTiffanys''), Russian (''Film/WarAndPeace1956''), French (''Film/LoveInTheAfternoon'') Belgian (''The Nun's Story''), and Native American (''The Unforgiven'') characters.
263* Creator/RalphFiennes and Creator/KateWinslet, both English, play Germans in ''Literature/TheReader'' with accents.
264** Fiennes played an Austrian in ''Film/SchindlersList''.
265** Fiennes played a Hungarian at least twice, both from the same era: in ''Film/TheEnglishPatient'', as noted above, and also in the less-well known ''Sunshine'', which was about a Hungarian Jewish family during World War II.
266** And he plays another Central European (this time of unknown nationality) in ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel''.
267* Creator/PetePostlethwaite plays Kobayashi in ''Film/TheUsualSuspects''. Not much can be said about the character for certain due to an UnreliableNarrator, but the name sounds Japanese and the actor is very white. It could be a code name of course.
268* Most of Creator/PeterLorre's (an Austrian-Hungarian Jew) career is built on this trope. A small list of the nationalities he was cast as:
269** Japanese (the ''Mr. Moto'' series) - although he reportedly refused heavy makeup and relying on stereotypes
270** Chinese (''Film/TheyMetInBombay'') - where he did wear heavy makeup and rely on stereotypes
271** French (''Film/MadLove'', ''Passage to Marseilles'')
272** Russian (''Background to Danger'') - bizarrely, frequent costar Sydney Greenstreet (an Englishman) plays a German agent
273** Mexican (''Secret Agent'') - although another character states he's [[{{Fauxreigner}} "not really a Mexican..."]]
274** German - innumerable movies made in WWII, with the then all-too-common irony of a Nazi character being played by a ''Jewish'' actor who ''fled Germany when Hitler came to power''.
275* ''Film/TheProducers'':
276** In the original film, Lee Meredith, an American actress from New Jersey, plays the Swedish Ulla. In an interview, she said that her use of stilted, formal Swedish, and her fake, [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign vaguely Scandinavian accent]], made Norwegians assume she was rural/small town Swedish, while the Swedes thought she was Norwegian.
277** In the 2005 musical remake, Ulla is played by Creator/UmaThurman, who, although American-born, is at least half-Swedish.
278* Most of Creator/LouDiamondPhillips' early roles were Mexican-American characters (''Film/LaBamba'', ''Film/StandAndDeliver'', ''Film/YoungGuns''), but his ancestry is quite mixed [[note]] Phillips' father is a Scots-Irish American with one-quarter Cherokee blood, and his mother is a Filipina with Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese ancestry[[/note]]. More recently, he has played both Myth/KingArthur and the [[Theatre/TheKingAndI King of Siam]] on stage.
279* The 1943 film adaptation of Creator/ErnestHemingway's novel ''Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls'' (which is about the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar) had all kinds of foreign actors playing Spanish characters: Swedish (Creator/IngridBergman), Greek, Russian, Mexican, Maltese, German, Hungarian. There was one Spanish actor too.
280* ''Film/{{Machete}}'' brings us American Creator/StevenSeagal as a Mexican drug lord. And no, [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent he doesn't try at an accent]].
281* ''Film/AngelsAndDemons'' has quite a bit of this, notably Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer as the Italian Vittoria Vetra. The character of the camerlengo had his nationality changed from Italian to Irish in the film, where he is played by the Scottish Creator/EwanMcGregor.
282* The 2004 film version of Creator/AndrewLloydWebber's ''Film/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' has this all over the place. It is set in France, and it is assumed that most characters are French. While the Phantom's nationality and family background is never explicitly stated, it can be assumed that he probably wasn't Scottish like his actor Creator/GerardButler. The British Creator/MirandaRichardson plays the French Madame Giry, her daughter Meg is played also by a British actress (PageThreeStunna Jennifer Ellison), Christine Daae, of Swedish descent, is played by the American Creator/EmmyRossum and the Italian diva Carlotta is played by the British Creator/MinnieDriver.
283* The little-known lowish-budget Christian film ''Hansie'', about South African cricketer Hansie Cronjé, was shot almost entirely in South Africa, with some scenes intended to be in India; all the characters in the movie are either South African or Indian, and most if not all the actors, writers, etc., are South African. Inexplicably, Hansie Cronjé's wife, Bertha, is played by American actress Sarah Thompson. Her Afrikaans accent is, quite frankly, terrible to the point of causing the audience's ears to bleed (it's like something between Dutch and German and maybe a little Australian). To be fair, the Afrikaans accent ''can'' be described as something between Dutch, German and Australian, ... but not in the way she portrayed it. ''At all''. But ja, at least she tried, hey. If it wasn't painfully obvious how hard she was trying, her accent would have fallen under AsLongAsItSoundsForeign.
284* Most of the Tibetans in ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'' were not played by actual Tibetans: Tenzin is played by Singaporean Chinese actor Chin Han, and his brother Nima by Canadian Chinese actor Creator/OsricChau. Also, the Croat-Danish actor Zlatko Buric portrays the Russian Yuri, and his also-Russian girlfriend Tamara is played by French actress Beatrice Rosen, who also pulled a FakeRussian in ''Film/TheDarkKnight''.
285* A most absurd one in the Thai superhero film ''Mercury Man''. The BigBad is an Afghan terrorist named ''Osama bin Ali'', but he is played by a Thai actor. No effort is made to change his appearance or voice to remotely sound Middle Eastern.
286* British actor Creator/OrlandoBloom has played:
287** American (Oregon) Drew Baylor in ''Film/{{Elizabethtown}}''.
288** American (North Carolina) Harris Parker in ''Main Street''.
289** Scottish Will Turner in ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean''.
290** Irish Australian Joe Byrne in ''[[Film/NedKelly2003 Ned Kelly]]''.
291** American Todd Blackburn in ''Film/BlackHawkDown''.
292** Cayman Island native Shy in ''Haven'' (but with his British accent).
293** Frenchman Balian in ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' (again, with his British accent).
294** Played for laughs in the DVD extras of ''Film/KnockedUp'', where he participated in a skit in which Creator/JuddApatow hired him for the male lead role (played in the movie by Creator/SethRogen) thinking he would use an American accent, which he refuses to do, leading Apatow to assume that he just can't. Bloom tries to play it off by saying that a British man can get a woman pregnant just as easily as an American man can.
295* Creator/ZoeSaldana, who was born in New Jersey and spent her teen years in the Dominican Republic has played:
296** ''Film/StarTrek2009'': African Nyota Uhura.
297** Cayman Island native Andrea in ''Haven''.
298** Caribbean Anamaria in ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean''.
299** Colombian Cataleya in ''Film/{{Colombiana}}''. The film also has Māori actor Cliff Curtis playing a Colombian-American gangster.
300* UsefulNotes/{{India}}-born British Creator/VivienLeigh's most memorable roles were as a SouthernBelle in both ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'' and ''Film/AStreetcarNamedDesire''. The role of Scarlett O'Hara has also been played by England-born Creator/JoanneWhalley.
301* ''Film/{{Troy}}'' (2004) featured Greek and other Mediterranean characters, but not a single Greek actor. A sampling:
302** American Creator/BradPitt as Achilles (with an atrocious British accent).
303** British Creator/OrlandoBloom as Paris.
304** German Creator/DianeKruger as Helen of Troy.
305** Australian Creator/EricBana, who is of Croatian descent as Hector.
306** Irish Creator/BrendanGleeson as Menelaus.
307** Irish Creator/PeterOToole as Priam.
308** Scottish Creator/BrianCox as Agamemnon.
309** Australian Creator/RoseByrne as Briseis.
310** Welsh Owain Yeoman as Lysander.
311** British Saffron Burrows as Andromache.
312* ''Film/TheBrothersGrimm'' had Creator/JonathanPryce playing the French baddie, complete with a hilarious French accent.
313-->'''Gnl. Delatombe:''' ''Zis'' is what I call Victorhy!
314** Pretty much ''everyone'' in the film is this trope: Creator/MattDamon (American) and Creator/HeathLedger (Australian) as the titular German brothers, Creator/PeterStormare (Swedish) as the Italian Mercurio Cavaldi, Creator/LenaHeadey (English) as Angelika (German), and Creator/MonicaBellucci (Italian) as the Mirror Queen (presumably German).
315* Creator/PatMorita's heavy Japanese accent in ''Franchise/TheKarateKid'' is notable due to his natural American accent. Supposedly, he didn't have this accent during his first audition and was rejected as a result. He then went to his uncle, who coached him in the "proper" Japanese accent and came back for a second try.
316* Creator/JohnnyDepp '''is''' this trope. Aside from his legendary portrayal of English pirate [[InsistentTerminology Captain]] [[Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean Jack Sparrow]], he's broken out the British accent for several roles; better still, in ''Don Juan de Marco'', he played--ready for this?--an Italian-American who reinvented himself as a Mexican lothario--''who speaks with a Castillian accent''. He also did a Frenchman in ''Film/{{Mortdecai}}''.
317** He has claimed Native American ancestry.
318* Pick an old Western with Indians in it. Any of them. Mostly portrayed by Jews and Italians in brownface, for the characteristic plains Indian big nose (this also leads to unusual [[http://screenshadowsgroup.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/1978-16780.gif blue-eyed Indian]], such as the one from ''Film/TheSearchers''). More recently, Asian actors have had such roles, as evidenced by ''Film/BrotherhoodOfTheWolf''. At the same time, white actors have claimed indigenous ancestry to make it seem "less racist" that they're playing nonwhite characters. Examples include Creator/JohnnyDepp (Tonto in ''Film/TheLoneRanger'') and Noah Ringer (''Film/TheLastAirbender'').
319* ''Film/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays1956'' had Creator/ShirleyMacLaine as an Indian princess.
320* In ''Film/TakingLives'', most of the main French Canadian characters are played by French actors using their own French accents. The difference between Quebec French and Metropolitan French is as big as the one between British English and American English. Even more bizarre, the movie itself was shot in Quebec City and there are some bona fide French Canadians as secondary characters.
321* Creator/AngelinaJolie has played several non-American characters:
322** British in ''Film/TheTourist'' and the ''Film/LaraCroftTombRaider'' films.
323** Greek in ''Film/{{Alexander}}''.
324** French, as Mariane Pearl in ''Film/AMightyHeart''.
325** Russian in ''Film/{{Salt}}'' (but it fits as Salt is supposed to be a DeepCoverAgent... and she is one among many {{Fake Russian}}s there).
326* Creator/AnnaPaquin was born in Canada but moved to New Zealand with her parents. Because of this, she has rarely ever played her actual nationality except in ''Film/FlyAwayHome'' (where her character is a New Zealander who moved to Canada). Some of her most notable Fake Nationality roles include:
327** Americans of varying accents in ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'', ''Film/FindingForrester'', ''Film/AlmostFamous'', ''Film/TwentyFifthHour'' and ''Film/TheIrishman''.
328** An English girl in ''Film/{{Jane Eyre|1996}}''.
329** The Spanish Queen Isabella in ''Film/{{Amistad}}''.
330** A Scotswoman in ''Film/ThePiano''.
331** A Polish woman in ''Film/TheCourageousHeartOfIrenaSendler''.
332* ''Film/MyBigFatGreekWedding'' is full of this.
333** Creator/NiaVardalos is a Greek-Canadian playing a Greek-American. Again it is a subversion similar to Creator/AdamSandler in ''You Don't Mess With the Zohan'', since she is in fact Greek.
334** Creator/LainieKazan is of Russian and Turkish Jewish descent.
335** Andrea Martin is an Armenian-American; the scene where Rodney & Harriet try to recall the ethnicity of Rodney's secretary, which turns out to be Armenian, may be a reference to this.
336** Joey Fatone is Italian-American.
337* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_%C5%8Ctaka Yoshiko Otaka]] (aka Shirley Yamaguchi) made a career under the false identity Li Xianglan, playing the role of a Chinese woman in [[http://fyeahasianhistory.tumblr.com/post/6322790557/the-colonial-romance-from-imperial-japan propaganda films]] in colonial Manchuria. In fact, most people at the time believed she ''was'' Chinese because her grasp of the language was that good.
338* Creator/RonPerlman is an American who played Russian strongman One in the French film ''Film/TheCityOfLostChildren'', [[FauxFluency he learned his French lines phonetically]] and is also doing a Russian accent in the language he doesn't speak.
339* Most of the cast in the American remake of ''Film/TheDebt'' (the main Israeli characters are played at various points in the film by England's Creator/HelenMirren and Tom Wilkinson, Ireland's Creator/CiaranHinds, Australia's Creator/SamWorthington, New Zealand's Marton Csokas and the USA's Creator/JessicaChastain).
340* The "Somali" pirates in ''Film/TheExpendables'' are ''very'' obviously not Somali, but played by Americans of West African descent. Peoples from those two regions look nothing alike.
341* UsefulNotes/{{South Africa}}n actress Creator/CharlizeTheron has yet to play a South African character; even in ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' (which was filmed in Africa) she plays an Australian - albeit with an American accent.
342* Most non-French film adaptations of ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'' qualify:
343** ''Film/TheThreeMusketeers1993'' had exactly ''one'' French person in the cast (JulieDelpy), which is still one more than ''Film/TheThreeMusketeers2011'', ''Film/TheThreeMusketeers1973'' had a grand total of ''three'' (and none of them were even filmed in France!).
344** 2023's ''Film/{{The Three Musketeers|2023}}'' has Anne of Austria, a Spanish princess who became queen of France, played by Creator/VickyKrieps, who hails from Luxembourg. She kept her [[MisplacedAccent native accent]], besides.
345* In ''Film/WarInc'' Music/HilaryDuff plays a Central Asian pop star, and unlike some people with Fake Nationality she ''doesn't'' drop the accent when singing.
346* The 1962 adaptation of ''Literature/TheManchurianCandidate'', in addition to Khigh Dhiegh (American of Egyptian and Sudanese descent), has Henry Silva (Sicilian-American) as a Korean, and Creator/AngelaLansbury and Laurence Harvey as Americans, NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent. The 2004 remake/second adaptation didn't follow this trope and cast Americans as Americans, Englishmen as Englishmen, and this one guy of European extraction played by a Swiss actor.
347* ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'' has an interesting, if complicated example with the character of Kano. In the video game his character was supposed to be of Japanese/American descent, but for the film, his character was played by the white, Australian accented Trevor Goddard. Unfortunately, Goddard was a Brit who only pretended to be an Australian in the belief that it would further his acting career, and his fake Australian accent makes Kano sound more like some sort of iffy Cockney. Thus not only did the character have a Fake Nationality but the man portraying him did as well. If that wasn't enough, the game developers liked Goddard's performance so much that they eventually decided to {{Retcon}} the character to be wholly Australian, but since the actor's nationality was fake it meant that the character's still was too.
348* Spanish actor Creator/AntonioBanderas has played a Spanish-Californian in the Zorro franchise, a Mexican as 'El Mariachi', and Arabs in ''Film/TheThirteenthWarrior'' and ''Film/BlackGold''.
349* Egyptian actor Creator/OmarSharif (who was of Lebanese descent) made a career out of [[PlaysGreatEthnics playing various ethnicities]]:
350** A Spaniard in ''Behold a Pale Horse''
351** UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan in ''Genghis Khan''
352** The King of Armenia in ''Film/TheFallOfTheRomanEmpire''
353** A Russian in ''Film/DoctorZhivago''
354** A Serbian in ''The Yellow Rolls-Royce''
355** A Jewish-American in ''Film/FunnyGirl'' and ''Film/FunnyLady''
356** A Mexican bandit in ''Film/MackennasGold''
357** Perhaps most egregiously, a [[QuestionableCasting German SS officer]] in ''Film/TheNightOfTheGenerals''.
358** An Arabian in ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''. At least then he fit the broad category of "Arab", and played someone who was actually named Sharif, to boot.
359* The 2002 remake of ''Film/TheFourFeathers'' has Creator/HeathLedger (Australian), Creator/KateHudson and Creator/WesBentley (American) playing upper class Victorian English people. In a movie directed by Shekhar Kapur (Indian), to boot.
360* Creator/AlecGuinness (an Englishman) has played, among others:
361** Fagin in ''Film/OliverTwist''
362** A Japanese man in ''A Majority of One''
363** An Arab Bedouin in ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''
364** A Russian in ''Film/DoctorZhivago'' (Omar Sharif's brother, at that)
365** UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler
366** An Indian in ''Literature/APassageToIndia''
367* UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan is rarely played by an actual Mongol in movies. He has been played by an Egyptian (Omar Sharif), an American (John Wayne), and a Japanese (Tananobu Asano), among others.
368* ''Film/SuperTroopers'' has Creator/BrianCox (Scottish) play Captain John O'Hagan of the Vermont Highway Patrol, an American of Irish descent, based on his last name and his catch phrase being "I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet" in a fake Irish accent. The catch phrase and the accent are later mocked by [[spoiler:Farva]] near the end of the film.
369** One of the {{running gag}}s in the film is the fact that no one can quite figure out Ramathorn's ethnicity, if only by the process of elimination, due to him being AmbiguouslyBrown (he's not black, Mexican, or Arab). The actor Jay Chandrasekhar is actually American of Tamil descent.
370* British actor Creator/MarkStrong, who is of Austrian and Italian descent, is often cast in Middle Eastern roles, playing an Iranian in ''Film/{{Syriana}}'', a Jordanian in ''Film/BodyOfLies'', and an Arab in ''Black Gold''.
371* Omar Sharif and Keenan Wynn as Mexicans, and Julie Newmar and Ted Cassidy as Apaches in ''Film/MackennasGold''.
372* Almost everyone in ''Film/EverAfter'', ''Film/{{Hugo}}'' and ''In Secret'' is British playing a French character. The exceptions are Americans and other non-Brits playing French characters with English accents like Creator/DrewBarrymore in the first, Creator/ChloeGraceMoretz in the second, and Creator/ElizabethOlsen, Creator/JessicaLange and Oscar Isaac (born in Guatemala to Guatemalan and Cuban parents) in the third - the fake nationality triple play.
373** ''Hugo'' lead actor Creator/AsaButterfield is English and has played [[Literature/TheBoyInTheStripedPyjamas a German]], [[Film/{{Hugo}} a Frenchman]] and [[Film/EndersGame an American]] ''before his fifteenth birthday''[[labelnote:*]]Based on filming dates, with ''Ender's'' getting 18 months' post-production[[/labelnote]]. Kid's gunning for Christian Bale's record.
374* In ''21 and Over'', the Korean-American Justin Chon plays the Chinese-American Jeff Chang. Furthermore, the version released in China changes him from an American-born Chinese to a Chinese-born exchange student.
375* Japanese-American actor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa Sessue Hayakawa]] was early Hollywood's go-to guy for any ethnic minority. He was offered roles as Asians, Native Americans, and Arabs.
376* ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra'' and ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'' have quite a few (given they went from "real American heroes" to multinational, not surprising):
377** Both Creator/JonathanPryce (Welsh) and Sienna Miller (English, born in NYC) are FakeAmerican (the President of the US and Anna Lewis/'''[[TropeNamer The]]''' [[TheBaroness Baroness]]).
378** Snake-Eyes is American but is played by the Scottish Ray Park.
379** Lee Byung-Hun is a Korean actor playing the Japanese Storm Shadow. As a boy, he's played by a Chinese-American, Brandon Soo Hoo (who also played a Vietnamese drug lord in ''Film/TropicThunder'').
380** The possibly European Zartan is played by South African actor Creator/ArnoldVosloo.
381** French-Cambodian actress Elodie Yung plays the Japanese Jinx.
382** The Irish Creator/RayStevenson plays a Southern-American, Firefly.
383* In ''Film/PacificRim'', Max Martini (American) and Robert Kazinsky (British) portray Hercules and Chuck Hanson, the Australian pilots of Striker Eureka. American Raleigh Becket is portrayed by the British Charlie Hunnam.
384** The Chinese Wei triplets are played by the Vietnamese Luu triplets.
385** [[Wrestling/{{Kurrgan}} Robert Maillet]] and Heather Doersken (both Canadian) play the Russian pilots Aleksis and Sasha Kaidanovsky.
386** Newt and Hermann (both German) are played by an American (Charlie Day) and a Brit (Burn Gorman but born in the states)
387* ''Film/{{Congo}}'' has Creator/TimCurry playing Romanian.
388* ''Film/CloudAtlas'': In a way, since multiple non-Asian actors, including Creator/HugoWeaving and Creator/HalleBerry, appear in heavy makeup as Koreans in the Neo Seoul storyline. Also, actress Doona Bae, a South Korean, appears as a Hispanic in the San Francisco story and as a white woman in the 1849 story.
389* In ''Film/TheHeat'' [[Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia Kaitlin Olson]] cameos as Tatiana, a Bulgarian prostitute.
390* In the 1982 film version of ''[[{{Film/Annie1982}} Annie]]'', Trinidadian actor/choreographer Geoffrey Holder played Warbucks' Indian bodyguard Punjab.
391* ''Film/TheRookie1990'' cast Puerto Rican Creator/RaulJulia and Brazilian Sonia Braga as Germans.
392* ''Film/TheDamned1969'' provides one of the more extreme examples. While a few of the main cast (Helmut Griem, Albrecht Schoenthals, Rene Koldehoff) are German, most are a bizarrely eclectic mix of nationalities. Most speaking English in their native accents, at that!
393** Dirk Bogarde and Creator/CharlotteRampling (English);
394** Helmut Berger (Austrian);
395** Ingrid Thulin (Swedish);
396** Umberto Orsini and Nora Ricci (Italian);
397** Renaud Varley (French);
398** Florinda Balkan (Brazilian);
399** John Frederick (American)
400* Creator/DolphLundgren is Swedish, but has played mostly Americans as well as a couple of Russians (in ''Film/RockyIV'' and ''Film/RedScorpion'') and a German (in ''Film/TheExpendables'').
401* ''Film/CinemaParadiso'' has three French actors playing Italian characters - including star Philippe Noiret as Alfredo, as well and Jacques Perrin and Brigitte Fossey as the adult Salvatore and Elena.
402* A lot of the cast of ''Film/IntoTheStorm2009''. Creator/BrendanGleeson is an Irishman portraying the Englishman Churchill, the actor who portrays FDR is actually Canadian, the King of England is portrayed by Iain Glein, a Scot, India-born Englishman Ismay is portrayed by a Welshman, and Clement Attlee is played by another Scot.
403* Averted in ''Film/{{Godzilla 2014}}''. Alongside Serizawa, the power plant workers, Ford Brody's teacher, the teenage Yanki boy, his parents, and the boy (who Ford Brody bonds within the train scenes) and his parents are all actually Japanese. Played straight with Aaron Taylor-Johnson himself, who is from England.
404* ''Film/WestSideStory1961'': Maria is a Puerto Rican character. The folks in charge of casting looked at the Russian-American Creator/NatalieWood and said, "Eh, close enough." Maria's brother, Bernardo, is played by George Chakiris, a Greek-American.
405* In the live-action adaptation of the life of the Mexican comedian ''Film/{{Cantinflas}}'', the titular character is played by the Spaniard actor Creator/OscarJaenada. Keep in mind Cantinflas in RealLife spoke with a very thick lower-class accent, and even Mexicans themselves struggle to imitate that kind of accent, but Jaenada himself manages to pull a really good accent anyway. For a better analogy for English-speaking audiences, it's like a classical British actor trying to imitate the stereotypical ''American ebonics'' accent.
406* Creator/MillaJovovich, who is of Ukrainian and Serbian adescent, identifies as Ukrainian and American. She's played mostly Americans, the very occasional Russian, and people who are French (''Film/TheMessengerTheStoryOfJoanOfArc'', ''Film/{{The Three Musketeers|2011}}'' and an episode of ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'').
407* Creator/NastassjaKinski (German with some Polish ancestry) has played people who are Italian (''Stay As You Are'', ''Unfaithfully Yours''), English (''Tess'', ''To The Devil... A Daughter''), Polish (''The Claim''), French (''Les Liaisons dangereuses''), American (many examples) and Russian-pretending-to-be-American (''Film/{{Terminal Velocity|1994}}''). Confusingly, she once played an American in a German movie! (''Passion Flower Hotel'')
408* ''Film/ThePrincessBride:''
409** Creator/MandyPatinkin, who plays Inigo Montoya, is an American Jew, not Spanish.
410** Although it's never stated in the movie, in [[Literature/ThePrincessBride the book]] [[GentleGiant Fezzik]] is Turkish. Wrestling/AndreTheGiant, who plays him, was a French-born son of Bulgarian and Polish immigrant parents.
411** Creator/WallaceShawn (Vizzini) is not actually Sicilian and is also Jewish.
412* In the 1989 movie ''Hellgate'', set in California but shot in South Africa, Ron Palillo is the only actual American in the cast.
413* In ''Film/Paddington2014'', the Peruvian bears are voiced by the English Creator/BenWhishaw, Creator/ImeldaStaunton and Creator/MichaelGambon. The English villain is played by Australian Creator/NicoleKidman. The German Mr Gruber is played by English Creator/JimBroadbent. Scottish-Italian Creator/PeterCapaldi and English Creator/JulieWalters have essentially swapped nationalities.
414* ''Film/UnderTheSkin'' features the American Creator/ScarlettJohansson as an alien disguised as an English woman.
415* ''Film/TheLoveGuru'' has Canadian Creator/MikeMyers as an American, while actual American Creator/JessicaAlba plays a Canadian, with Creator/JustinTimberlake playing a French-Canadian.
416* ''Film/{{Noah}}'' has Hebrews played by New Zealanders (Creator/RussellCrowe and Marton Csokas), English (Creator/EmmaWatson, Ray Winstone and Douglas Booth), a Welshman (Creator/AnthonyHopkins), Americans (Creator/JenniferConnelly, Creator/LoganLerman (who is Jewish), Madison Davenport[[note]]the ill-fated Na'el[[/note]] and Finn Witrock[[note]]the young version of Winstone[[/note]]) and at least one Canadian (Dakota Goyo[[note]]the young Crowe[[/note]]). Several of them, notably the American actors, go for a Fake Nationality triple by donning English accents.
417* A great deal of the major or supporting characters in ''Film/{{Mortdecai}}'' are played by someone not from the same country as them.
418** Spinoza, apparently a Frenchman, is played by Welsh actor Pal Whitehouse.
419** Emil Strago is definitely not an Australian, but his actor, Jonny Pasvolsky, is.
420** Hong Kong gangster Fang Fat is played by Phillipine actor Junix Inocian.
421* Notably averted in ''Film/IngloriousBasterds'', in which every character with a speaking role is played by an actor of the correct nationality.
422* The 1979 British movie ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Arabian Adventure]]'' is even more lacking in actual Arabs in main (or any) roles than ''Film/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'', with the likes of Milo O'Shea, Creator/ChristopherLee, Creator/PeterCushing (!) Oliver Tobias, Emma Samms, Creator/MickeyRooney (!!), Shane "[[Series/{{Thunderbirds}} Scott Tracy]]" Rimmer (who's Canadian), and freaking John Ratzenberger in the cast.
423* Creator/DennisHaysbert, an African-American actor known for his roles in ''Series/TwentyFour'' and ''Series/TheUnit'', played the Cuban character Pedro Cerrano in the ''Film/MajorLeague'' movies.
424* In ''Deadly Sisters'', [[BasedOnATrueStory based on a pair sisters found guilty of killing their mother]], casts American Creator/AbigailBreslin and English ([[OohMeAccentsSlipping not always that well hidden]]) Georgie Henley as Canadians.
425* ''Film/Holocaust2000'': The Israeli Sara Golan is played by Italian actress Agostina Belli.
426* ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' adds Israeli Creator/GalGadot as the Themysciran Greek Comicbook/WonderWoman to the FakeAmerican Creator/HenryCavill as the Man of Steel.
427* Creator/CateBlanchett is a dual citizen of Australia and the US but was raised in the former country and therefore her natural accent is Australian. However she has only played an Australian a handful of times in her whole film career and only in smaller, lesser known films. The rest of the time she has played characters who are:
428** [[FakeAmerican American]] - ''Pushing Tin'', ''Film/TheTalentedMrRipley'', ''[[Film/TheGift2000 The Gift]]'', ''Film/{{Bandits}}'', ''Film/TheShippingNews'', ''Film/TheMissing2003'', ''Film/TheAviator'', ''Film/{{Babel}}'', ''Film/ImNotThere'', ''Film/TheCuriousCaseOfBenjaminButton'', ''Film/{{Hanna}}'', ''Film/BlueJasmine'', ''Knight of Cups'', ''Film/{{Carol}}'', ''Film/{{Truth}}'', ''Film/{{Tar}}''
429** [[FakeBrit English]] (or at least English-accented) - ''Film/{{Elizabeth}}'', ''An Ideal Husband'', ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', ''Heaven'', ''Film/TheLifeAquaticWithSteveZissou'' (more of a transatlantic accent than strictly English), ''Film/NotesOnAScandal'', ''Elizabeth: The Golden Age'', ''[[Film/RobinHood2010 Robin Hood]]'', ''Film/TheHobbit'' and ''[[Film/Cinderella2015 Cinderella]]''
430** Irish - ''Film/VeronicaGuerin''
431** Scottish - ''Charlotte Gray'' and ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon2''.([[WhatTheHellIsThatAccent ALLEGEDLY, in the latter case.)]]
432** [[FakeRussian Russian/Ukranian]] - ''The Man Who Cried'' and ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull''
433** German - ''The Good German''
434** French - ''Film/TheMonumentsMen''
435* Romanian-Jewish actor Creator/EdwardGRobinson's best known roles were as Italian-American mobsters (Rico Bandello in ''Film/LittleCaesar'', Johnny Rocco in ''Film/KeyLargo'').
436* Creator/MaryPickford was one of the most famous actresses during the 1920s and was known as "America's Sweetheart". She was actually born in Canada, though she spent most of her life as an American.
437* The Swedish Creator/AliciaVikander has rarely played her own nationality onscreen. Her roles range from Americans (''Film/ExMachina'' and ''Film/JasonBourne'') to Brits (''Film/TombRaider2018'' and ''Film/TestamentOfYouth'') and everything in-between (i.e. Danish and German).
438* ''Film/{{Help}}'': All the cultists from 'the East' are played by English actors. This is {{Lampshaded}} when the Beatles visit the Indian Restaurant "seeking enlightenment as to rings" from someone from "the mystic East" but quickly learn that everyone working there is English.
439--> '''Ringo:''' He's from the ''West''!
440--> '''Restaurant Host:''' No, the East... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepney Stepney.]]
441* ''Film/HannibalRising'':
442** Hannibal Lecter himself is revealed as Lithuanian, yet he's played by Frenchman Creator/GaspardUlliel. Then again, his previous portrayers, Creator/AnthonyHopkins and Creator/BrianCox, are both British (specifically Welsh and Scottish respectively) and [[Series/{{Hannibal}} later]] the role would go to a Dane, Creator/MadsMikkelsen.
443** Hannibal's sister Mischa is played by Czech child actress Helena-Lia Tachovská.
444** Lady Murasaki is a Japanese immigrant to France played by Creator/GongLi, who is Chinese.
445** Inspector Pascal Popil is a French police detective played by Creator/DominicWest, who is English.
446** Vladis Grutas, the Lithuanian war criminal, is played by Creator/RhysIfans, a Welshman.
447* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse has some noteworthy examples:
448** Iranian-Jewish actor Shaun Toub as the Afghan [[Film/IronMan Ho Yinsen]]
449** The Norwegian-American Erik Selvig is portrayed by a Swedish actor, Creator/StellanSkarsgard.
450** Film/{{Thor|2011}} played by Creator/ChrisHemsworth, an Australian pulling off an RP accent
451** British Creator/AndySerkis as South African bandit Ulysses Klawe
452** Brits Creator/TomHolland and Creator/BenedictCumberbatch as the American Spider-Man and Film/{{Doctor Strange|2016}}.
453** Cases from two fictional countries:
454*** [[Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron Sokovia]] ([[{{Ruritania}} Eastern Europe]]): Elizabeth Olsen (American), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (British), and Daniel Bruhl (German-Spanish)
455*** [[Film/BlackPanther2018 Wakanda]] ([[{{Bulungi}} Southeast Africa]]): Chadwick Boseman (American of West African descent), Winston Duke (Tobagonian-American), Daniel Kaluuya (British of Ugandan descent), Letitia Wright (Guyanese-British), and Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett (both Americans). Partially averted with Lupita Nyong'o (Kenyan-Mexican), Creator/JohnKani (South African), and Danai Gurira (Zimbabwean-American). Played with Creator/MichaelBJordan who is an American yet his character is of both African-American and Wakandan descent.
456** Chinese-Canadian Creator/SimuLiu playing the Chinese-American [[Film/ShangChiAndTheLegendOfTheTenRings Shang-Chi]].
457* 1958's ''Film/TheInnOfTheSixthHappiness'' took this to QuestionableCasting levels by having Swedish blonde StatuesqueStunner Creator/IngridBergman as Gladys Aylward, the short dark-haired Cockney maid-turned-missionary whose story the movie was based on; Creator/RobertDonat as the Mandarin of Yang Cheng (after Creator/SeanConnery didn't get the role), and German-Austrian Curt Jürgens as Captain Lin Nan.
458* This is endemic to the cast of ''Film/Pride2014''. [[BasedOnATrueStory It's based on the true story]] of gay and lesbian activists in London organizing to help Welsh miners during the 1984-85 strike. Most of the Welsh characters are played by English actors: Creator/ImeldaStaunton, Creator/BillNighy, and Creator/PaddyConsidine; an exception is Gethin, played by Irishman Creator/AndrewScott. And the hero of the film, English-born/Irish-raised Mark Ashton, is played by New Yorker Ben Schnetzer. Oddly, this doesn't at all detract from the quality of the film.
459* ''Film/NightTrainToLisbon'': Most of the main cast who play Portuguese characters are not. They're largely English (Creator/JeremyIrons, Creator/CharlotteRampling, Jack Huston, Creator/ChristopherLee) with the French Creator/MelanieLaurent, Swiss Creator/BrunoGanz, Swedish Lena Olin and Swiss Sarah Spahl as well.
460* ''Film/ThePromise2016'': Of the main cast who play Armenians, only Creator/AngelaSarafyan actually is (she's a US citizen, as her parents moved there when she was four). However, most of the Turks really are played by actors at least ethnically Turkish.
461* In ''Sky Riders'', French-Armenian Music/CharlesAznavour plays a Greek cop.
462* ''Film/BelowHerMouth'': Erika Linder is Swedish, not Canadian. A couple of minor characters are American and Slovak.
463* ''Film/WindRiver'': Kelsey Chow, who played Natalie (a Native American), is half Chinese and half white. As a result of the film, she claimed to be part Cherokee, but there's no evidence for this.
464* ''Film/ICantThinkStraight'': Tala is Jordanian-Palestinian, played by Canadian Lisa Ray who's of Indian and Caucasian ancestry. Leyla is British Indian, and played by Sheetal Sheth who's an Indian-American.
465* ''Film/FirstGirlILoved'': Brianna Hildebrand plays Sasha, who is a Latina (though it's not emphasized). However, she reportedly has Mexican ancestry. This plus her looks being similar to the actors playing Sasha's parents make the casting work (she also never speaks Spanish, unlike Clifton).
466* ''Film/DoraAndTheLostCityOfGold'': Due to being filmed in Australia, a number of the minor characters are either Australians or New Zealanders playing Americans. Sammy was Hispanic American but played by Aboriginal Australian Madeleine Madden.
467* ''Film/JojoRabbit'', befitting its absurdist BlackComedy, has Adolf Hitler (or, rather, Jojo's ImaginaryFriend version of him) played by [[DescendedCreator the film's writer and director]], Creator/TaikaWaititi. Taika is of mixed Māori, Irish, and [[CrossesTheLineTwice Ashkenazi]] [[IronyAsSheIsCast Jewish]] descent. And that's only the start of a cast of Fake Germans.
468* In ''Film/ValdezIsComing'', the Hispanic Bob Valdez is played by Creator/BurtLancaster, an American of Irish descent (all four of his grandparents emigrated from Northern Ireland).
469* ''Film/MargaritaWithAStraw'': Leila is played by French-Indian actress Kalki Koechlin, who was born in India to French parents and descendant of Eiffel Tower engineer Maurice Koechlin. In the film however she's just Indian, and looks [[HollywoodGenetics absolutely nothing like]] her on-screen parents (played by Indian actors). Khunam meanwhile is Pakistani-Bangladeshi and portrayed by the Indian actress Sayani Gupta.
470* ''Film/Revenge2017'': FrenchJerk Richard is played by Belgian actor Kevin Janssens. The latter can be given a pass due to Belgium being straight north of France and having French as one of three official languages.
471* ''Film/CinemaParadiso'': Alfredo, adult Salvatore, and adult Elena are all Siclians, and are all played by French actors (Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, and Brigitte Fossey, respectively).
472* This was a staple of Italian movies throughout the 1950s to the 1980s, where multinational financing and export markets would mean that non-Italian actors would be playing Italian characters and vice versa.
473* ''{{Film/Clara}}'': The film is set in Toronto, so Creator/TroianBellisario (who's American) must be playing a Canadian here.
474* ''Film/TheColorOfFriendship'': Nearly all of the South Africans are played by Americans, except for Merle Bok (South African actress Susan Danford portrayed her).
475* ''{{Film/Margarita}}'': Nicola Correia-Damude is a Guyanese-Canadian, playing a Mexican woman.
476* ''Film/TheWorldUnseen'': Sheetal Sheth (an Indian-American), Lisa Ray (an Indian-Canadian) and Parvin Dubas (an Indian) play South Africans of Indian descent.
477* ''Film/InTheFade'': Not entirely fake, but Numan Acar plays an ethnic Kurd while he is a Turk by ethnicity, though both come from Turkey.
478* ''Film/TheReport'': Iraqi-Canadian Fajer Al-Kaisi plays Lebanese-American Ali Soufan.
479* John Van Dreelen, the son of a Dutch actor, fled Nazi-occupied Holland to go into the family business in America. He spent his career playing characters from just about everywhere in Europe, including Germans in World War II-set films like ''Film/VonRyansExpress'' and series like ''Series/Combat1962''.
480* ''Film/TheNamesake'': Creator/ZuleikhaRobinson, a Briton with Indian, Burmese, English, [[HeinzHybrid Scottish and Iranian]] ancestry plays an Indian-American, Moushimi.
481* ''Film/UncleFrank'': Lebanese actor Peter Macdissi plays Saudi Walid/Wally.
482* Creator/RooneyMara's American and played Swedish Lisbeth Salander in ''Film/TheGirlWithTheDragonTattoo2011'' (then later Annu from ''Don't Worry He Won't Get Far On Foot'').
483* Creator/{{PBS}} made three TV film adaptations of Creator/TonyHillerman's ''Literature/LeaphornAndChee'' series. Although the series is about the Navajo Tribal Police, not a single lead role was played by a Navajo actor; instead, it has the American Cherokee Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn, Canadian Saulteaux Creator/AdamBeach as Jim Chee, Canadian Mohawk Alex Rice as Janet Pete, and several others. This is ironic because of an in-universe example of this trope in ''Sacred Clowns'': Jim Chee, Janet Pete, and a Comanche agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs attend a screening of a film about Comanches that actually used all Navajo. The characters commented that Hollywood apparently thinks all Native Americans look alike.
484* ''Film/ManOnFire'': Several of the Mexican characters are played by non-Mexicans.
485** The Ramos family are portrayed by US actors. At least the wife is ''supposed'' to be an American immigrant... but is played by an Australian!
486** Manzano is played by Italian Creator/GiancarloGiannini. This gets a LampshadeHanging when his character mentions that he worked for Interpol in Rome for a few years before returning to become director of the AFI.
487** Aurelio Rosas Sanchez, the Voice's brother, is played by a Brazilian actor.
488** Mariana Garcia Guerrero, the reporter who helps Creasy, is played by Creator/RachelTicotin (mixed American with a Puerto Rican mother and a Russian-Jewish father).
489* ''Film/FreshmanYear'': CJ's father Chukwumah is a Nigerian who immigrated to the US. His actor Benjamin Ochieng is Kenyan-American.
490* ''Film/RedCliff'' mostly averts this, with a largely Chinese cast. Creator/KenWatanabe was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen originally selected to play Cao Cao]], but was replaced with Zhang Fengyi after protests from Chinese audiences. However, the half-Japanese-half-Taiwanese actor Creator/TakeshiKaneshiro was apparently Chinese enough to play Zhuge Liang. The only other non-Chinese (including Taiwanese) actor was Shido Nakamura as Gan Ning.
491* ''Film/YogaHosers'': Most of the Canadians were played by Americans or other foreigners.
492* In ''Film/LeaToTheRescue'', indigenous Brazilian Aki is portrayed by African-American Storm.
493* ''Film/TheFriscoKid'' has Italian-American actor Val Bisoglio as a Native American chief.
494* ''Film/OperationFinale'' has the Indian-British Creator/BenKingsley as Adolf Eichmann, and the Guatemalan-American Creator/OscarIsaac as an Israeli Mossad agent. American Creator/NickKroll also plays an Israeli, but he at least is Jewish.
495* ''Film/IndiaSweetsAndSpices'':
496** Creator/SophiaAli, who's Pakistani-American, played Indian-American main character Alia Kapur.
497** Sheila Kapur, an Indian-American, is played by Nepali Manisha Koirala.
498* ''Film/TheShoesOfTheFisherman'':
499** Mexican-American actor Creator/AnthonyQuinn played the Ukrainan Kiril Lakota.
500** [[Creator/LaurenceOlivier Sir Laurence Olivier]] portrayed the Russian Premier Kamenev.
501** The Australian actor Creator/LeoMcKern portrayed the Italian Cardinal Leone.
502* Francophone Belgian actor Creator/JeremieRenier is very sought after in French productions, and as such he's played many French characters, the most famous being the late singer Music/ClaudeFrancois.
503* ''Film/{{Cannonball}}'' has German driver Wolf Messer played by American Creator/JamesKeach.
504* ''Film/Unknown2011'' has Creator/LiamNeeson as a FakeAmerican [[spoiler:(and one of the backup passports implies Martin is really Canadian)]], Swiss Creator/BrunoGanz as a former East German, and German Creator/DianeKruger as a Bosnian (hence she sports a thick East European accent when speaking English, but her German is flawless).
505* The Comanches in ''Film/{{Prey| 2022}}'' are played by Creator/AmberMidthunder (Fort Peck Sioux), Dakota Beavers (Ohkay Owingeh), Michelle Thrush (Cree), Julian Black Antelope (Blackfoot), and Stefany Mathias (Squamish).
506* ''Film/TheRetreat2021'': English actress Celina Sinden plays Layna, who's Canadian like the other characters.
507* ''Film/{{Spring}}'': Italian Louise is played by Creator/NadiaHilker, who's German.
508* ''Film/{{Besties}}'': Concerns the ancestry and not the nationality per se. Actress Lina El Arabi is French of Moroccan descent while her character in the film, Nedjma, is French of Algerian descent.
509* ''Film/Amsterdam2022'':
510** British Creator/ChristianBale, British Creator/AnyaTaylorJoy and Australian Creator/MargotRobbie play Americans.
511** Canadian Creator/MikeMyers plays the British Paul Canterbury.
512** In-Universe: American Valerie poses as a French nurse during the War.
513* ''Film/EmilyTheCriminal'': Creator/TheoRossi (mixed Italian, North African, Spanish and Syrian descent) plays Youcef, a Lebanese man. Jonathan Avigdori (Israeli-American) plays his cousin Khalil.
514* ''Film/NotLikeEveryoneElse'': Brandi is half white and half Cherokee. The actress playing her, Creator/AliaShawkat, is half white and half Iraqi.
515* ''Film/CrazyRichAsians'': None of the Singaporean main cast are played by Singaporean actors. Creator/HenryGolding (Nick) is British-Malaysian, Creator/MichelleYeoh (Eleanor) and Creator/RonnyChieng (Eddie) are Malaysians, Creator/{{Awkwafina}} (Peik Lin), Creator/KenJeong (Wye Mun), and Creator/JimmyOYang (Bernard) are Americans, Creator/GemmaChan (Astrid) and Jing Lusi (Amanda) are British, Chris Pang (Colin) is Australian, Creator/SonoyaMizuno (Araminta) is British-Japanese, Creator/RemyHii (Alistair) is Australian-Malaysian, and Nico Santos (Oliver) is Filipino-American. Ironically, the American protagonist Rachel Chu's mother is played by one of the few actual Singaporean actors to appear in the film, Tan Kheng Hua.
516* ''Film/FarewellMyQueen'': Creator/DianeKruger, who's German (and now American), plays Austrian Marie Antoinette.
517* ''Film/TheBigWedding'': Englishman Creator/BenBarnes plays Alejandro, a Colombian-born American.
518* ''Film/Missing2023'' has the Portuguese Creator/JoaquimDeAlmeida as a Colombian.
519* ''Film/DaysOfBetrayal'': Czechoslovakian actors played some foreign parts such as Jaroslav Radimecký as the British UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain, Martin Gregor as the French Édouard Daladier, Rudolf Krátký as the German Dr. Paul Schmidt (Adolf Hitler's interpreter) and Rudolf Jurda as the German Hermann Göring.
520* ''Film/{{Nighthawks}}'':
521** The German Heymar "Wulfgar" Reinhardt is played by Dutch actor Creator/RutgerHauer.
522** Shakka turns out to be a Moroccan, played by the Indian actress Persis Khambatta.
523* The Canadian-made film ''Blackberry'' is mostly a Canadian cast, but Jim Balsillie is played by american Creator/GlennHowerton.
524* The Belgian Creator/BenoitPoelvoorde has played many French characters due to often working in the French movie industry. [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent His accent is noticeable]] sometimes.
525* ''Film/{{The Flash|2023}}'' has the Spanish Creator/MaribelVerdu as the American Nora Allen. Downplayed in that, by the sound and look of it, this incarnation of Nora is of Spanish descent.
526* ''Film/TheLastQueen'': The French-Algerian Creator/DaliBenssalah as Aruj "Barbarossa"/Oruç Reis, who was born on the isle of Lesbos and was of Greek and Ottoman Turkish descent.
527* ''Film/{{Attachment}}'':
528** A partial example. Creator/EllieKendrick plays a Jewish Englishwomen with Danish descent on her mom's side. Kendrick does not have either Jewish or Danish ancestry.
529** Leah's Jewish mother, Chana, is played by Danish actress Creator/SofieGrabol, a gentile.
530* ''Film/TheGreyZone'': Most the characters are German or Hungarian. Most are played by Americans, with the rest Irish or British actors.
531* ''Film/{{Colette}}'': All of the French characters are played by British or Irish actors.
532* In ''Film/TheNightOfTheGenerals'', almost all of the Germans are played by British actors (Creator/PeterOToole, Creator/DonaldPleasence, Creator/CharlesGray etc), although the most egregious example of the Egyptian Creator/OmarSharif as Grau. There's also the French Creator/PierreMondy as Sergeant Kopatski.
533* ''Film/MyAnimal'': Creator/BobbiSalvorMenuez and Creator/AmandlaStenberg, both Americans, play Canadians.
534* ''Film/AreYouBeingServed'': Creator/AndrewSachs, Glyn Houston, and Karan David all play Spaniards.
535* ''Film/DadsArmy1971'': Paul Dawkins, Sam Kydd, George Roubicek, Scott Fredericks, and Franz Van Norde are all Brits playing Nazis.
536* Caterina and her husband from the French FilmWithinAFilm in ''Film/DoctorInClover'' are played by two Brits - Catherine Feller and Harold Kasket.
537* ''Film/PleaseTurnOver'' has Creator/JoanSims playing [[FrenchMaid Madeline]].
538* Henri Dupont from ''Film/NoKidding'' is a Frenchman played by the British Michael Sarne.
539* ''Series/UpPompeii'' films:
540** The entire cast of ''Film/UpPompeii'' is made up of Brits playing Pompeiians and Romans.
541** ''Film/UpTheFront'':
542*** Hungarian Creator/ZsaZsaGabor as the Dutch UsefulNotes/MataHari.
543*** Creator/LancePercival, Peter Bull, Creator/GertanKlauber, Stanley Lebor, Vernon Dobtcheff, and Creator/PatriciaQuinn play Germans.
544*** Creator/HermioneBaddeley and Robert Gillespie both play French.
545* ''Film/TheEmperorOfParis'' has the German Creator/AugustDiehl as the French (Alsatian) Nathanael de Wenger and the American Mark Schneider as the French UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte.
546* In a painfully obvious and insensitive example, the Hindi historical drama film ''Dear Friend Hitler'' has Indian actors portray all historical figures, even the German ones especially Hitler himself. Needless to say, the film was widely panned for its [[QuestionableCasting casting choices]].
547* ''Film/GirlsLikeMagic'': Jamie is of Iranian and Indian parentage. Actress Shantell Yasmine Abeydeera is ethnically Sri Lankan though.
548* ''Film/CarryOnSeries'':
549** ''Film/CarryOnRegardless'': British-born Creator/BettyMarsden plays UsefulNotes/MataHari.
550** ''Film/CarryOnSpying'': Polish-born Creator/JohnBluthal plays the Viennese head waiter.
551** ''Film/CarryOnUpTheKhyber'': Creator/KennethWilliams and Creator/AngelaDouglas play the Indian Khasi and his daughter, the Princess Jelhi, while Creator/BernardBresslaw played Bungdit Din, an Arab.
552** ''Film/CarryOnHenry'': Creator/JoanSims, Creator/JulianOrchard, Creator/PeterGilmore, Creator/GertanKlauber, and David Davenport all play French characters, while the Italian Conte Filippo di Pisa is played by the British Alan Curtis.
553** ''Film/CarryOnAbroad'' has Creator/PeterButterworth, Creator/HattieJacques, Creator/RayBrooks, Alan Curtis, Creator/HughFutcher, Gertan Klauber, Creator/BrianOsborne, and Olga Lowe as Spaniards.
554** ''Film/CarryOnEmmannuelle'' stars Kenneth Williams and Creator/SuzanneDanielle as a French couple.
555* ''Film/ShockTreatment'': The Viennese Bert Schnick was played by the Australian Creator/BarryHumphries.
556[[/folder]]
557
558[[folder:Literature]]
559* ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'': InUniverse. Piper's famous Cherokee father has never played any Native American roles in his movies.
560[[/folder]]
561
562[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
563* ''Series/BabylonFive'': The Russian Susan Ivanova was portrayed by the American actress Creator/ClaudiaChristian, whose parents were of German and Irish descent.
564* Achmed Abdul Uskudar from the ''Series/BirdsOnTheWing'' episode, "Mr Uskudar's Con Nearly Goes Wrong", was played by the British John Nettleton.
565* A skit on ''Series/TheColbertReport'' had Creator/StephenColbert playing Esteban Colberto, the Hispanic host of the ''Colberto Reporto Gigante''.
566* ''Series/TheCherryQueen'': Two out of three of the German Goldfisch sisters aren't played by German actresses -- French actress of Sicilian descent Delphine Sérina as the older sister, Gretchen, and another French actress, Clémence Boué, as Käthe, the younger sister.
567* ''Series/CinderellaChef'': Xia Chun Yu (Chinese) is played by Bie Thassapak Hsu, AKA Xu Zhi Xuan (Thai-Taiwanese).
568* ''Series/RuyisRoyalLoveInThePalace'':
569** Xin Zhi Lei (Chinese) as Kim Ok-yeon/Jin Yu Yan (Korean).
570** None of the Mongolian characters are played by Mongolian actresses.
571** Xiangjian is from a fictional kingdom in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan East Turkestan]]. Her actress Li Qin is Chinese.
572* ''Series/ScarletHeart'': Most of the Mongolian characters are played by Chinese actors. Only the Mongolian king is played by an actor of Mongolian descent.
573* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has a lot of these:
574** The character of Khan Noonien Singh, a Punjabi Sikh played by Mexican Creator/RicardoMontalban.
575** In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', [[spoiler:Khan]] is played by the white British Creator/BenedictCumberbatch.
576** Chicago-born Walter Koenig, son of two Russian Jews, as Russian Pavel Chekov.
577** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' has a Canadian (Creator/WilliamShatner) playing an American (James T. Kirk), another Canadian (Creator/JamesDoohan) playing a Scotsman (Scotty), an American (Creator/NichelleNichols) playing an African (Uhura), and a Japanese-American (Creator/GeorgeTakei) playing a non-Japanese Asian-American (Sulu). The only regular character portrayed by an actor of the same nationality was [=McCoy=], a U.S. Southerner played by a Georgia-born actor with a slight-but-legit Southern accent (Creator/DeForestKelley).
578** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' has an Englishman (Creator/PatrickStewart) playing a Frenchman (Picard), an American (Creator/LeVarBurton) playing an African (Geordi [=LaForge=]), and another American (Denise Crosby) playing someone of Ukrainian descent (Yar). Admittedly, Yar was not Earth-born; she was born and raised on a human colony on a completely different planet. [=LaForge=]'s actual origins are deliberately vague--he's a MilitaryBrat whose parents moved wherever Starfleet sent them. All we know for sure is that his mother was in Africa when he was born.
579** ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' has a Korean-American (Linda Park) playing a Japanese woman (Hoshi). But in general, the later series were more accurate, with human characters either played by actors of appropriate nationality, or being from worlds other than Earth.
580* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' has Briton (of Indian descent) Naveen Andrews as Iraqi Sayid Jarrah, New Zealander Alan Dale as the British Charles Widmore, and the Australians in flashbacks are overwhelmingly played by non-Australians faking the accent. Additionally, Frenchwoman Danielle Rousseau is played by Croatian actress Mira Furlan, while Russian Mikhail Bakunin is played by Venezuelan-born Andrew Divoff, but at least he's half-Russian and speaks the language. Nigerian Eko is played by British actor [[Creator/AdewaleAkinnuoyeAgbaje Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje]], but this is justified since his parents are Nigerian and he does the accent right for once. Similarly, Korean-born American Creator/DanielDaeKim plays a Korean...who can't speak English at first (ironically, [[FauxFluency he had to be re-taught Korean by his on-screen wife]] Yunjin Kin, similar to how in-character Sun teaches English to Jin).
581* The third episode of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' has British actress Haydn Gwynne playing a Czech women. Gwynne is fluent in French and Italian, so she often plays different nationalities.
582* Carlo Rota, a British-born actor of Italian ancestry, plays the Lebanese Yasir Hamoudi in ''Little Mosque on the Prairie'' (note that on ''Series/TwentyFour'' Rota plays Morris O'Brian, whose ethnicity has not been specified but is likely Irish, and on an episode of ''This is Wonderland'' he played an Italian hotdog vendor).
583* ''Series/{{NCIS}}''
584** The Israeli Ziva David is played by Creator/CoteDePablo, whose parentage is Chilean.
585** Ari the BigBad is played by Creator/RudolfMartin, a German.
586** American (of Irish and Italian ancestry) Creator/ArmandAssante as Frenchman Rene Benoit.
587* Hispanic Michael Trevino plays the white Tyler Lockwood who is descended from Native Americans on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''. Also, neither Creator/PaulWesley or Creator/IanSomerhalder who play the Italian-American Salvatores have any Italian in them and none of the actors who play the Originals have any Scandinavian ancestry, except for Creator/RileyVoelkel
588* Betty's father in ''Series/UglyBetty'' is Mexican, but the actor who played him, Creator/TonyPlana, is Cuban. Her extended family from the episode "A Tree Grows in Guadalajara" was composed of Creator/JustinaMachado (Puerto Rican-American), Creator/RitaMoreno (Puerto Rican) and Creator/LillianHurst (Puerto Rican). The episode also had Creator/LilyanChauvin (''French!'') playing a Mexican native.
589* The Australian animal hunter in ''Series/{{Eureka}}'' was played by Canadian-American Creator/MattFrewer.
590* Briton Creator/HughLaurie as American Gregory House on ''Series/{{House}}''. In a season one episode House calls a doctor in the middle of the night and fakes a British accent, claiming he's from London and forgot what time it would be in America. For that scene, Laurie did not speak with his real accent, but with the accent he used when he played Bertie Wooster in ''Series/JeevesAndWooster''.
591* Kato in various adaptations of ''Radio/TheGreenHornet'' has always been Filipino but has never been played by one. The first radio actor to voice the role was apparently Japanese (Raymond Hayashi), American Roland Parker voiced him for most of the series run, while American Mickey Tolan played the role towards the end. In the [[Film/TheGreenHornetSerials film serials]], Kato's nationality was specified as Korean, but the role was played by Chinese actor Keye Luke. And in the TV series Kato was played by Chinese-American actor Creator/BruceLee.
592* Mixed with the FakeAmerican concept on the short-lived series ''Series/NewAmsterdam2008''. Creator/NikolajCosterWaldau, a Dane, plays John Amsterdam, [[spoiler: a NYC cop who is actually an immortal Dutchman doomed to walk the earth until he found his soul mate and went through an interesting string of relationships and Americanized aliases]]. His American accent was good enough to fool most viewers.
593* German actor Creator/HorstBuchholz played a Polish man very convincingly in ''Film/TigerBay'' - his [[OohMeAccentsSlipping accent only slipped]] in a single scene.
594* Creator/DavidCarradine, who was an American of Cherokee, English, Irish, Italian, Scottish, German, Spanish, Ukrainian and Welsh descent, played the half-Chinese Shaolin Master Kwai Chang Caine in ''Series/KungFu1972''. Carradine's half-brother Keith portrayed a teenage Caine, while an equally non-Asian Radames Perá played young Caine.
595** Carradine played another Kwai Chang Caine, this one the American-born grandson of the original, in ''Series/KungFuTheLegendContinues''. This character's son Peter Caine was played by Chris Potter, a white Canadian. (It is, therefore, entirely possible that this Caine and his son could be as little as 1/8 and 1/16 Chinese, respectively.)
596* In the 1987 British made-for-television film ''{{Scoop}}l'', Norwegian actor Sverre Anker Ousdal plays insane Swede Erik Olafsen. Funny thing is, Olafsen is a rather Norwegian spelling, the most common Swedish equivalent would be Olofsson. Not to mention that there is nothing in the plot that requires the character to be a Swede - making him Norwegian would at least be more accurate.
597* In ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', we have the Indian-American actor Creator/SendhilRamamurthy playing the Indian character Mohinder Suresh; at the beginning of the show he attempted to do some kind of Indian accent (possibly Tamil?), but after a few episodes he settled on a (relatively good) straight British accent. We also have the Korean-American actor James Kyson Lee playing the Japanese (and Japanese-speaking) character Ando Masahashi, presumably under the tutelage of his authentically Japanese colleague Masi Oka.
598* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' and ''Series/{{Angel}}'' used this:
599** Americans Creator/DavidBoreanaz, Creator/JamesMarsters, Creator/JulietLandau and Creator/AlexisDenisof playing the Irish Angel and British Spike, Drusilla, and Wesley respectively.
600** The California-born Marsters took this to an extreme in the Buffy episode "Doomed" (4x11). Playing the British vampire Spike, he replicates a Brit's very poor imitation of an American accent when Spike tries to change his speech to avoid detection by the vampire-capturing Initiative. This rather remarkable feat can be considered the linguistic equivalent of "chicken-fried chicken": chicken pretending to be cube steak pretending to be chicken.
601** In Boreanaz's case his character's nationality wasn't revealed until two seasons in, and he has some Irish ancestry. His Irish accent in flashbacks was rather poor, so he didn't bother using the accent when Angel was temporarily reverted to his teenage personality in one episode.
602* Englishman Creator/CharlieCox plays the Irish-American Daredevil in [[Series/Daredevil2015 the 2015 series of the same name]].
603* On ''Series/{{Mash}}'', Asians of every nationality and descent were used to play the native Koreans. In the later part of that series, Korea ''itself'' was cast [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything as Vietnam]].
604* The ''Play of the Week'' adaptation of ''Rashomon'' (not to be confused with the Creator/AkiraKurosawa film) had actors of several nationalities playing Japanese characters. None of the actors were Asian, let alone Japanese. Among them: Ricardo Montalban (Mexican), Carol Lawrence (Italian-American), James Mitchell (Anglo-Portuguese), and Oskar Homolka (Austrian with a Czech surname).
605* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' featured a Finnish character... using a [[FakeRussian Russian]] accent (which sounds nothing like Finnish). The Israeli-British Creator/BrianGeorge also plays the Pakistani restaurant owner Babu Bhatt.
606* ''Series/HogansHeroes'' is actually a surprisingly complete aversion. Of the main cast, which included French, British, American and German characters, only Sgt. Shultz was representing a different country-he was Austrian.
607** In the time the series is set, Austria wasn't exactly "a different country"-it had been annexed by Germany.
608* ''Series/FawltyTowers'':
609** Manuel, who's from Barcelona, is played by the German-born Jewish British actor Creator/AndrewSachs.
610** The "American" in the "Waldorf Salad" episode was played by Bruce Boa, a Canadian actor who made a career of being the token North American on British shows.
611* Swedish actress Helena Mattsson was cast as a Russian gold-digger on ''Series/DesperateHousewives''.
612* Creator/DanielDavis of Arkansas has made a career playing proper Brits, most notably on ''Series/TheNanny''. According to his Website/IMDb profile, during the run of that series viewers would write in saying that his castmate Creator/CharlesShaughnessy (who actually ''is'' British) should take lessons from Davis on how to do a proper British accent!
613* ''Series/TwentyFour'' has produced several examples:
614** South African Creator/ArnoldVosloo as Habib Marwan, a terrorist BigBad of Turkish origin.
615** British-Sudanese actor Alexander Siddig played Hamri al-Assad, a [[AnonymousRinger presumably Lebanese]] terrorist mastermind turned [[TheAtoner Atoner]].
616** Sean Majumder played an Arab terrorist on the show, despite being half East Indian and half Newfie.
617** In a particularly jarring example, American Dennis Hopper played BigBad Victor Drazen, a ''Serbian'' warlord.
618** Indian-American actor Kal Penn playing an Arab of indeterminate origin.
619** Aki Avni, an Israeli (of Turkish-Jewish descent), plays an Arab terrorist. [[spoiler: For about twelve seconds.]]
620** And Jack Bauer is played by a Canadian actor of British ancestry. Damn it!!!
621** Anil Kapoor, a Bollywood (Indian) superstar, is playing a character of presumably Iranian origin, though not a terrorist, but a foreign President.
622** Australian John Noble played a minor antagonist on the series who was Russian.
623** Australian actor Nick Jameson also played a Russian character: Yuri Suvarov, the president of the country.
624** Peter Wingfield played David Emerson, a bad guy from the African nation of "Sangala", without his native-born Welsh accent. (He has also used, with varying degrees of success, an Irish accent on "NCIS:LA" and Russian on an episode of "Endgame".)
625* American Creator/RichardBasehart portrayed a British stage actor on an episode of ''Columbo''. To balance it out, British Creator/NicolWilliamson portrayed an American doctor on a later episode.
626* New Yorker Bernie Kopell was over-the-top German villain Siegfried on ''Series/GetSmart''.
627* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'' features Americans Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Trade Minister Tagomi), Joel de la Fuente (Inspector Kido), and Louis Ozawa Changchien (Kasoura) as Japanese characters. Danish Carsten Norgaard plays the German Rudolph Wegener. Of all the German characters in the film, only one (Adolf Hitler) is actually played by a German actor, while the rest are played by an assortment of Australian, Danish, French, Canadian and Irish actors.
628* Khigh Dhiegh made a career out of playing "yellow peril" Asian villains, like Yen Lo in ''Literature/TheManchurianCandidate'' and Wo Fat on ''Series/HawaiiFiveO''. In real life, he founded the Taoist Institute in Hollywood. But he was born Kenneth Dickerson in New Jersey, of mixed Anglo and North African/Arab heritage, with no trace of East Asian-ness.
629* The Series/TrueJacksonVP movie has an actor sloppily juggling an American and Scottish accent...while playing a Frenchman.
630* ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' has a New Zealander playing the extremely Scottish Flynn [=McAlisteir=]. He made a game effort on the accent, at least. Not to mention the full cast of {{Fake American}}s in nearly every season from 2003-2009 (''[[PowerRangersSPD SPD]]'' being the only exception)''.
631** When Saban got the series back, they began casting Americans as the core Rangers again, though filming's still taking place in New Zealand and therefore there are plenty of extras, mentors, and side characters who fall into this.
632** ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'' has the [[ButNotTooForeign sort-of Mexican]] Antonio played by a Thai-German-American actor.
633** ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'' had the Brazilian-born American actor Davi Santos and the white New Zealand actor Jarred Blakiston both playing rangers from Zandar, a fictional European country.
634** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaSteel'' had Will Shewfelt (American, Arab, Desi heritage) and Jordi Webber (New Zealand, Maori heritage) playing American Latino brothers.
635** ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' had Thuy Trang, a Vietnamese-American actress, playing a character of mixed Taiwanese and Korean ancestry (if you count the comics as canon). In the show, her ancestry is straight-up ambiguous, as the actor playing her father is Japanese, while the actors playing her Uncle Howard, her mom, and her cousin Sylvia are all of obvious, but different, Asian nationalities. It's entirely possible that if she'd not left the show, her heritage ''might'' have been revealed at some point beyond just being Asian-American.
636* Subverted in an episode of the ''Series/ElleryQueen'' TV series, in which an Indian man is obviously played by a white guy with makeup. It turns out that, in-universe, he ''is'' a white guy in makeup playing an Indian.
637* In Season 1 of ''Series/TheCloser'', [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000642/ Marina Sirtis]], of [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Deanna Troi]] fame, plays an Iranian woman. Though Greek, she plays a sleuth of Middle Eastern and Levant characters.
638** Marina Sirtis is British but born of Greek parents.
639* Creator/MargaretCho's ''Series/AllAmericanGirl1994'' did this in spades: Margaret Cho was the only Korean-American in the main cast of the show. The actress playing the grandmother (Amy Hill) was Japanese-American, as was father Clyde Kusatsu; mother Jodi Long and brother B.D. Wong were Chinese-American.
640* In ''Series/RescueMe'', African-American Daniel Sunjata plays the Puerto Rican Franco Rivera.
641* The cast of ''Series/AlloAllo'' is made up of dozens of Englishmen playing Frenchmen, Germans, Austrians, Italians and Swedes. Only three characters in the show are British. Despite that, everyone talks English, but they pretend they can't understand each other and speak with different accents.
642* In a very early episode of ''Series/TheSaint'', Simon Templar has to rescue a kidnapped American girl in Rome. Said girl is played by English actress Sally Bazely.
643* ''Series/{{Community}}'':
644** Abed and his dad are Arab-Americans: Danny Pudi (Abed) is half-Indian and half-Polish (and grew up speaking Polish), while Iqbal Theba (Abed's dad) is Pakistani. The Arabic they speak, however, is real.
645** Señor Chang, a.k.a. ''El Tigre Chino'' ("The Chinese Tiger"), is played by ''Korean''-American actor Ken Jeong.
646* In Series/MissionImpossible, Leonard Nimoy, as the MasterOfDisguise, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg76TOodagI went undercover as a Japanese person and did kabuki]].
647** And as ''The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier'' pointed out, when he disguised himself as the villain (played by [[Series/HawaiiFiveO Wo Fat]] himself, Khigh Dheigh) he somehow became several inches shorter...
648* On ''Series/{{Ringer}}'' Henry's American wife Gemma is [[spoiler: - well, ''was'' -]] played by British actress Tara Summers. Averted on the same show by Ioan Gruffudd and Jaime Murray, however, who do indeed play Brits.
649* Adelai Niska on ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', a crime boss of indeterminate Eastern European ethnicity ([[http://fireflychinese.kevinsullivansite.net/episode3.html#ws though he tells his henchman to cut off Mal's ear in Czech]]), is played by New Yorker Michael Fairman.
650* In ''Series/ThirtyRock'', Fred Armisen guest-stars as Liz's Middle Eastern neighbor whom she immediately suspects is a terrorist. [[spoiler: He just wants to participate in ''Series/TheAmazingRace''.]]
651* Done with each of the leads on Series/StrikeBack. American Philip Winchester plays [[FakeBrit British Sgt. Michael Stonebridge]], while Aussie Sullivan Stapleton plays [[FakeAmerican Ex-Delta Force soldier Damien Scott]].
652* Ahmad Kahn on ''Series/NYC22'' is an Afghan refugee-turned-[[NewMeat NYPD rookie]]. His actor is British of Arab or Persian descent.
653* On ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}'', the white Creator/MarkSheppard plays Graham Tanaka, a white FBI agent with an Asian last name.
654* The Japanese Suki from ''Series/TowerPrep'' is played by a Taiwanese-American.
655* Ricardo Montalbán was a frequent victim of this trope. He often complained that he was cast as just about every nationality ''but'' Mexican in productions not made in his native country. In ''Series/HawaiiFiveO'', he played as European race car driver Alex Pareno in "Death Wish on Tantalus Mountain" and Japanese man Tokura in "Samurai". In ''Series/TheWildWildWest'' episode "The Night of the Lord of Limbo", he played a Confederate soldier called Noel Bartley Vautrain.
656* Among the many roles played by Mark Lenard on ''Series/HawaiiFiveO'' was an amnesiac Japanese ninja.
657* The Honduran comedian Carlos Mencia (real name Ned Holness) made a career out of exploiting Mexican and Mexican-American stereotypes. He did this in both his stand-up routine and on the show ''Series/MindOfMencia''. In his early stand-up career he tried to avert this by telling jokes about how he was always mistaken for Mexican. However he eventually decided to embrace the confusion, and identify himself as Mexican.
658* Ross Martin, a Polish-American Jew, was so convincing as the Hispanic Andamo in ''Series/MrLucky'' that he became typecast for a time in such roles.
659* In ''Series/CodeLyokoEvolution'', Yumi, a Japanese girl, is played by Mélanie Tran, an actress of Vietnamese descent.
660* The second season of ''Series/OnceUponATime'' added the character of WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}, based on the Chinese ''Ballad of Hua Mulan'', played by a Korean-American.
661* ''Series/OnceUponATimeInWonderland'': Creator/PeterGadiot is AmbiguouslyBrown enough to play a character descended from Creator/ZuleikhaRobinson, an actress of South Asian ancestry. He is part Dutch and part Mexican.
662* Both played straight and subverted in "The Night Of The Inferno", the pilot of ''Series/TheWildWildWest'': Creator/NehemiahPersoff, born in Jerusalem, plays a Mexican; Victor Buono plays a Chinaman... who turns out to be another Mexican in disguise, making this a case of Fake Nationality in-universe (but still being a Fake Nationality). (While the nationality of Buono's villain Count Manzeppi was never made clear, he definitely plays an American in one of the two [[ReunionShow reunion movies]]; Persoff, on the other hand, plays a Chinaman in "The Night of the Deadly Blossom" and an American in "The Night of the Underground Terror".)
663* The [[InternationalCoproduction US-UK]] MadeForTVMovie ''Murder by Moonlight'' (or ''[[MarketBasedTitle Murder on the Moon]]'', depending on which country you watch it in) is a Fake Nationality fiesta - set on a joint American-Russian lunar colony, the cast has Danish Brigitte Nielsen as an American investigator with other Americans played by Brits (and some actual Americans, like Gerald [=McRaney=]), and British Julian Sands as a Russian investigator with other Russians played by Brits, Poles and even the odd American.
664* In ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow'', Carmen, who is of Mexican and Cuban ancestry, is played by Masiela Lusha, who was born in Albania. Her Cuban-American mother Angie is played by Constance Marie, who is Mexican. Angie's niece Veronica is played by half-Mexican, half-Puerto Rican Aimee Garcia.
665* In ''[[Series/TheBridgeUS The Bridge]]'' German actress Diane Kruger plays American Sonya Cross, while Colombian actress Catalina Sandino Moreno plays Mexican Alma Ruiz.
666* ''Series/HouseOfCardsUS'':
667** The Cuban-American Linda Vazquez is played by Indian-American Creator/SakinaJaffrey.
668** Russian president (and Putin {{Expy}}) Viktor Petrov is played by the Danish Creator/LarsMikkelsen.
669* ''Series/{{The 100}}'' has among others Australian Creator/ElizaTaylor as Clarke, Greek-Canadian Creator/MarieAvgeropoulos as Octavia, English Creator/RickyWhittle as Lincoln, and Scottish-Peruvian Creator/HenryIanCusick as Kane.
670* The very English Katrina, Ichabod's wife on ''Series/SleepyHollow'', is played by Swedish Katia Winter; Ichabod's dad is played by Canadian Victor Garber, and Lyndie Greenwood (Jennifer Mills) is also Canadian in real life.
671* ''Series/SomeGirls'' has Anna Hitchcock, who is from New Zealand and is Viva's stepmother. Her actress, Dolly Wells, is actually English.
672* ''Series/{{Homeland}}'' has Pakistani characters played by Suraj Sharma, who is Indian, and Shavani Seth, who is a Brit of Indo- and Afro-Caribbean descent.
673* ''Series/{{Revenge}}'' has a number of Canadians playing Americans (Emily [=VanCamp=], Creator/HenryCzerny, James Tupper) plus at least one Brit (Josh Bowman). There's also Karine Vanasse as Margaux, who's another Canadian. French-Canadian, but Canadian.
674* ''Series/OrphanBlack'': Canadian actress Creator/TatianaMaslany plays [[ActingForTwo characters]] of British, American, German, Ukrainian, French, Italian and Austrian origin. This is due to the fact they're clones whose creators performed in-vitro fertilization on women from various counties.
675* ''The Royals'', despite being about the British Royal Family and filmed in England, has Australian Alexandra Park as Princess Eleanor. Meanwhile, the show's only American regular Ophelia is played by Canadian Merritt Patterson.
676* ''Series/{{Outsourced}}'' is a very egregious example. A lot of actors are from different backgrounds than the characters they play. For example, Rizwan Manji who is an Ismaili Muslim plays Rajeev Gidwani who is a Sindhi Hindu. Rebecca Hazelwood who plays Asha in ''Outsourced'' is part Indian, part English has played a lot of Indian characters of various backgrounds (although she is a decent enough of an actress to pull it off). All of the other Indian characters are played by American and British actors with Indian ancestry.
677* ''Literature/TheThornBirds'' miniseries, set in Australia, is rife with this. The only Australian in a major role is Bryan Brown, who played Luke. Meanwhile, Americans and Brits play people from New Zealand (Fee and most of the Cleary children), [[FakeIrish Ireland (Ralph, Paddy, and Mary)]], Australia (Justine and Dane), and Germany (Rainier), while Canadian actor Christopher Plummer plays an Italian cardinal. Adding insult to injury, only three of them make any effort at [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent at sounding the way they should]].
678* Due to the limited access of actors with immigrant background in TheSixties, Norwegian actors playing for the Broadcasting Company had to get away with almost anything. Because of the black-and-white production, this was rather easy, and the same actors went all over, playing Algerians, black people from the DeepSouth, Romani, Jews, and even ''Chinese'', if they had to. This went remarkably well, all considering (the American plays featuring blacks were mostly anti-racist, by the way). Good makeup skills, DyeingForYourArt and decent use of light effects did the trick.
679* In the miniseries adaptation of Jeffrey Archer's ''Kane And Abel'', American banker William Kane is played by New Zealand's Sam Neill; Polish hotelier Abel Rosnofski, on the other hand, is played by the USA's Peter Strauss.
680* The reality show ''Series/MysteryDiners'' caught a group of people doing this [[spoiler: to convince a business investor they were Russians so they could fool him into helping fund their [[ConArtist scam]].]]
681* ''Series/TwentyOneJumpStreet'' both subverted this in Real Life, and played it straight In Universe. Vietnamese Dustin Nguyen played Japanese character Ioki. Then it turns out Ioki is Vietnamese, and just pretending to be Japanese (including having taken on the name of "Ioki").
682* ''Series/TheIndianDetective'': English actress Christina Cole plays Canadian Robyn Gerner.
683* A few members of the ''Series/KimsConvenience'' cast, while still Canadian, are not Koreans:
684** Andrew Phung (Kimchee) is of Vietnamese descent.
685** Creator/SimuLiu (Jung) is Chinese.
686** Hiro Kanagawa (Pastor Choi) is Japanese.
687* ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse2018'': The Dutch Michael Huisman plays the American Steven Crain, matching the accent of his character's American family pretty flawlessly.
688* On ''Series/TheLastKingdom'', the German Alexander Dreymon plays Uhtred, a Saxon born in what is now England. Interestingly, Uhtred does not have an English accent as he was raised by Danes.
689* ''Series/CrossingLines'': Englishwoman Lara Rossi plays Dutchwoman Arabela Seeger. Creator/GoranVisnjic, who's Croatian-American, plays Italian Marco Constante.
690* ''Series/TheSpanishPrincess'': Englishwoman Charlotte Hope plays the titular Catherine of Aragon.
691* ''Series/GarthMarenghisDarkplace'':
692** An InUniverse example in which British actor Todd Rivers plays Hispanic doctor Lucien Sanchez. You can even see the eye makeup used to make him look Hispanic.
693** The Temp is played by an American (and Dagless mistakes him for one), but a poorly written speech given as he was dying reveals the Temp to be from Bermuda.
694* Chinese sitcom ''I Love My Family'' (''Wo Ai Fan Mi Li'') cast Simone Giertz, a 16-year-old Swedish girl on vacation, as a character's American girlfriend. Not only did she have to memorize all of her Mandarin lines phonetically, but she spoke English with a noticeable Swedish accent. Giertz would later gain internet fame as the builder of "shitty robots" and banish her Swedish accent almost completely.
695* ''Series/PartyOfFive2020'':
696** Creator/BrandonLarracuente is a Puerto Rican American, playing Mexican-born Emilio Acosta, who was raised in the US.
697** Emily Tosta, who's playing Lucia Acosta, is Dominican.
698** Elle Paris Legaspi, who plays Valentina Acosta, is of Filipino and Italian descent.
699** Garcia is also American, although playing Matthew, who's Mexican.
700** Chilean Fernanda Urrejola plays Mexican Gloria Acosta. Argentine Creator/SolRodriguez plays Natalia, who is also Mexican.
701* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': Canadian Page Fletcher as the Frenchman Guillaume de Marchaux in "Cat and Mouse".
702* ''{{Series/Vida}}'': The American-born Lyn is played by Mexican actress Melissa Barrera. Likewise, Elle Paris Legaspi, who played Lyn as child, is of Filipino and Italian descent.
703* ''Series/ControlZ'': Creator/ZionMoreno is a Mexican-American from Texas who plays Isabela, who's supposed to be Mexican. However, on a couple occasions she speaks a bit of English with an American accent.
704* ''Series/NeverHaveIEver'': Devi's uncle Aravind, an Indian immigrant, is played by Pakistani actor Iqbal Theba.
705* ''{{Series/Hightown}}'': Osito is Dominican, played by African-American Atkins Estimond. On a minor note, the Cote Verdeans are also played by African-Americans.
706* ''Series/DarkDesire'': Mexican Brenda Castillo is played by María Fernanda Yepes, who's Colombian.
707* ''Series/PennyDreadfulCityOfAngels'':
708** Brits Natalie Dormer and Rory Kinnear as Germans Elsa Branson and Dr. Kraft. Dormer also plays Mexican-American Rio and American Alex Malone.
709** Elsa, Alex and Rio being all different manifestations of HumanoidAbomination Magda, their nationalities are also fake InUniverse.
710* ''Series/AFrenchVillage'': Belgian actors Patrick Descamps, Nade Dieu, Nicolas Gob, Marie Kramer and Fabrizio Rongione all play French characters. The Danish actor Peter Bonke plays German character Kollwitz.
711* ''Series/{{Trotsky}}'':
712** Russians play all the characters of other ethnicities or nationalities.
713** Downplayed with Konstantin Khabensky, who is half-Jewish.
714* ''Series/Next2020'': Shea is a Honduran-American, having been born in Honduras. Her father Nacio also later arrives from Honduras. Brazilian-American actress Fernanda Andrade plays her, while Nacio's played by Puerto Rican actor David Zayas.
715* ''{{Series/Bones}}'':
716** Arastoo is played by Paj Vehdat, an American actor of Persian descent.
717** Cuban Rudolfo Fuentes is played by Argentinian actor Ignacio Serrichio.
718* ''{{Series/Highlander}}'': Besides FakeScot Adrian Paul as [=MacLeod=], there’s Belgian Alexandra Vandernoot as the French Tessa and Methos, who somehow has Peter Wingfield’s British accent despite being of unknown descent and having lived all over the world. It is possible for him to be fair skinned if he was from someplace in Europe as we might infer from his Bronze Age pillaging of Europe, but we don’t know.
719* ''Series/TheWilds'': All of the Ojibwe characters are played by actors of different ancestry. Jenna Clause is Cayuga. Kimberly Guerrero is from a mix of three other Indigenous peoples. Michael Teh is a mixed race man from Australia. Erana James meanwhile is Maori.
720* ''Series/TheBoys2019'':
721** Frenchie's actor, Tomer Capon, is Israeli, not French.
722** Creator/KarenFukuhara, who plays The Female, is American, not Japanese (although she is Japanese-American).
723** Creator/AyaCash, an American, plays Stormfront, [[spoiler:who was born in Germany in 1919]].
724* ''Series/DeadlyClass'':
725** Marcus is half-Nicaraguan, half-American. Benjamin Wadsworth's half-Mexican, half-American.
726** Maria Salazar, who's Mexican, is played by Venezuelan Maria Gabriela de Faria.
727** Vietnamese-American Lana Condor plays Japanese Saya Kuroki.
728** El Alma del Diablo, a Mexican, is played by Puetro Rican actor David Zayas.
729* ''Series/FeelGood'': American actress Creator/LisaKudrow is playing Canadian Linda, Mae's mom.
730* ''Series/BobHeartsAbishola'': Most of the actors playing the Nigerian characters are this. Only Creator/FolakeOlowofoyeku (Abishola), Creator/BayoAkinfemi (Goodwin), Tony Tambi (Chukwuemeka) and Dayo Ade (Tayo) are actually Nigerian[[note]]Though Tambi was raised in Cameroon and Ade was raised in Canada[[/note]]. Shola Adewusi (Olu), Gina Yashere (Kemi) and Anthony Okungbowa (Kofo) are of Nigerian descent, but are British-born and raised. Creator/BarryShabakaHenley (Tunde) Travis Wolfe, Jr. (Dele) and Kimberly Scott (Ogechi) are American.
731* ''Series/RoswellNewMexico'': Rosa is a Mexican-American Latina played by Native American (Sioux) Creator/AmberMidthunder.
732* ''Series/TheLWord'':
733** Iranian/Spanish-American Creator/SarahShahi played Mexican-American Carmen.
734** Indian-American Creator/JaninaGavankar as Papi, who's a Latina.
735* ''Series/InFromTheCold'': {{Invoked}} when Russian-American Jenny pretends she's Spanish-American as part of getting close with terrorists in Spain.
736* ''Series/BigSky'': Americans Creator/JaninaGavankar, Vinny Chhibber and Creator/BernardWhite play a Canadian crime family.
737* ''Series/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel'' has two of the Jewish main characters played by non-Jews Creator/RachelBrosnahan and Creator/TonyShalhoub. Ironically, the Jewish actress Creator/AlexBorstein plays the [[AmbiguouslyJewish Ambiguously Goyish]] Susie.
738* ''Series/Impulse2018'': Nikolai, a Romanian (who may be a naturalized Canadian), was played by British-born Canadian actor Creator/CallumKeithRennie.
739* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'':
740** Australian Creator/SamReid plays the Frenchman Lestat de Lioncourt.
741** Armand is hinted to be a Crimean Tatar, and he's portrayed by British Bangladeshi Assad Zaman.
742* ''Series/StrangeEmpire'': American Creator/MelissaFarman played Rebecca Blithely, a Canadian.
743* ''Series/MarieAntoinette2022'': Almost ''nobody'' who played a French character is actually French, including the English Creator/JamesPurefoy as King UsefulNotes/LouisXV. The only exception is the French Gaia Weiss as Madame du Barry. Emilia Schüle was born in Russia from an ethnic German family, so it kind of fits with the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, though if one goes into details with the empire's subdivisions, Marie Antoinette was technically Austrian. Similarly, the Swiss Marthe Keller as the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa (Marie Antoinette's mother).
744* ''Series/BaghdadCentral'': The Iraqi characters were mostly played by Israeli Arab and Palestinian actors.
745* ''Series/UnitedStatesOfAl'': The titular character Awalmir "Al" Karimi, who is Afghani, is played by Indian South African actor Adhir Kalyan.
746* ''Series/Dracula2013'': Irishman Creator/JonathanRhysMeyers plays a Romanian ([[{{Fauxreigner}} playing an American]]) who also has an English accent in private.
747* ''Series/Deutschland83'': Ugandan-German actress Creator/FlorenceKasumba plays Rose Seithathi, who's South African.
748* ''Series/BreakingBad'' / ''Series/BetterCallSaul'': Gus Fring, a Chilean immigrant, is played by Creator/GiancarloEsposito, born in Denmark to an Italian father and African-American mother and raised in Manhattan, New York City.
749* ''Series/SleeperCell'': The Saudi Muslim Farik is played by the Jewish Israeli Oded Fehr. The Bosnian Illija is played by the half-French, half-Italian American Henri Lubatti. The Frenchman Christian is played by the Franco-American Alex Nesic (he holds dual US and French citizenship). The Iraqi British Salim is played by the Iranian-American Creator/OmidAbtahi. It's {{lampshaded}} by Farik, who says he's passed for an Iranian, Sephardic Jew and also other ethnic backgrounds in the past.
750* ''Series/ALeagueOfTheirOwn2022'': Esti is Cuban, played by Priscilla Delgado, who's a Puerto Rican.
751* ''Series/WelcomeToSweden'': {{Invoked}}. Pepe/Gary, Creator/AmyPoehler’s assistant, uses his vague ethnicity to his advantage, pretending to be Latino and unable to speak English when he’s really Cherokee and doesn't speak Spanish.
752* ''Series/TheSpencerSisters'': American Creator/LeaThompson plays Canadian Victoria Spencer.
753* ''Series/LesMiserables2000'' gave us the American Creator/JohnMalkovich as the French Javert as well as the Italians Creator/AsiaArgento and Enrico Lo Verso as the French Eponine Thénardier and Marius Pontmercy, respectively.
754* ''Series/{{Trigonometry}}'': Ray is half French and half English. Actress Ariane Labed is fully French and has acquired Greek citizenship as well.
755* ''Series/SpecialOpsLioness'': Stephanie Nur is Syrian-Austrian, playing Saudi woman Aaliyah Amrohi.
756* ''Series/ForeignAffairs1966'': Monsieur Dubois from "The Foreign Body" was played by the British Bryan Kendrick.
757* ''Series/TheGnomesOfDulwich'': The Chinese Empire Gnomes - Plastic, Dolly, and Rita - were played by Leon Thau (Palestinian), Anne de Vigier, and Lynn Dalby (both British).
758* ''Series/InForAPenny'': Ali, a Pakistani man, was played by Kevork Malikyan, who was Greco-Armenian.
759[[/folder]]
760
761[[folder:Music]]
762* Swedish-Danish singer Jonny Jakobsen is one of the reigning champions of this trope, both played straight and PlayedForLaughs. He started his career as the FakeAmerican country-bluesman "[[https://www.discogs.com/it/release/8745996-Johnny-Moonshine-And-The-Troubled-Water-Band-Johnny-Moonshine-And-The-Troubled-Water-Band Johnny Moonshine]]" with his band The Troubled Waters, but without any kind of success. In those years the bubblegum dance genre (e.g. Music/{{Aqua}}, Toy-Box etc.) was at the peak of its popularity, so Jakobsen decided to turn into a comedic singer and release some comedic {{Eurodance}} albums, playing a variety of personas. Thus, the faux-Hindi guru [[https://www.bubblegumdancer.com/project.php?id=76 Dr. Bombay]], the FakeScot trickster [[https://bubblegumdancer.com/55-Dr._Macdoo/project/ Dr. [=MacDoo=]]] and the faux-Mexican bandito [[https://www.bubblegumdancer.com/project.php?id=76 Carlito]] were born. He even managed to invoke GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff in several different countries, for example "Carlito" became quite popular in Japan, where one of his singles was even used in the soundtrack of their adaptation of the film ''Film/NachoLibre''!
763* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in the Music/DasRacist song "Fake Patois" that lists musicians and actors who have put on a fake Jamaican accent for their work.
764* Latin pop singer Lou Bega (of "Mambo No. 5" fame) uses a stage name and stage persona that vaguely suggest that he's Cuban-American. In reality, however, he is of Italian and Ugandan descent and spent his childhood in West Germany before moving to Miami (where he got his inspiration as an artist) as a teenager. "Lou Bega" is itself based on his real Ugandan surname, "Lubega."
765[[/folder]]
766
767[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]
768* This is fairly common in pro wrestling, and it goes back to the earliest days of the sport. One of the first such angles involved "Cowboys vs. Indians", with well-tanned wrestlers playing the heel Indians and some well-crafted publicity stunts used to draw the desired media attention. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, {{Foreign Wrestling Heel}}s became common, first with American wrestlers portraying Germans sympathetic to the Nazi cause (when in fact, several "pro-Nazi" wrestlers were Jewish or fought for the Allied forces), and later faux-Russians. Asian heels also became common, with most of them actually being Native American, Hawaiian or Samoan (although a few were legitimately Asian); for instance, Wrestling/MrFuji was a Hawaii-born Japanese-American. During the 1970s and 1980s, such as Wrestling/IvanKoloff and [[Wrestling/EdFarhat the original Sheik]] were two of the biggest stars; they were actually North Americans posing as foreigners. In addition, a number of white wrestlers, such as Paul Diamond and Jamie Noble, have posed as Asians wearing masks.
769* Subverted when Wrestling/TheIronSheik, an Iranian, had a brief run in the early 90s as Col. Mustafa, an Iraqi. He was still identified as being the Iranian born Sheik but had changed his allegiance to the nation that was now America’s main enemy.
770* Although billed as being from the Soviet Union (specifically Lithuania), Wrestling/NikolaiVolkoff (born Josip Nikolai Peruzović) was actually from Yugoslavia ({{UsefulNotes/Croatia}}, to be exact). Wrestling/BorisZhukov (born James Harell), his ostensibly Soviet tag team partner and later rival, was in fact born and raised in ''Virginia''.
771* Burqua-clad Syrian valet Raisha Saeed is portrayed by American [[Wrestling/CheerleaderMelissa Melissa Anderson]], AKA [[IHaveManyNames "Future Legend" Cheerleader Melissa and Alissa Flash]].
772* Canadian (though of Italian descent) Anthony Carelli playing Italian Wrestling/SantinoMarella. Before that, in OVW, he was Russian wrestler Boris Alexiev.
773* Parodied with the WWF/E's The Machines, a supposedly Japanese tag team whose membership included "Giant Machine" (obviously Wrestling/AndreTheGiant in a mask), and "Hulk Machine" ([[Wrestling/HulkHogan Guess Who?]]) The group was actually part of a CharlieBrownFromOuttaTown angle when Andre was suspended for no-showing an event. [[note]]The angle itself was a cover for Andre's filming of ''Film/ThePrincessBride'', a tour of Japan and tending to health problems.[[/note]]
774* Wrestling/{{Sabu}}, in reality an American-born wrestler of Lebanese descent, has been billed as hailing from Saudi Arabia, and from Bombay, India. Sabu attempts to maintain the illusion by not speaking in public, though he has been overheard speaking to his opponents during matches in a perfectly American accent. At one point, Wrestling/{{ECW}} were billing him as from "Bombay, Michigan" as an in-joke. At the same time, his tag-team partner, Wrestling/RobVanDam, was billed as being from "Battle Creek, India".
775* Pablo Marquez was from Ecuador but billed as a Puerto Rican in ECW due to having spent most of his wrestling career on the island.
776* Wrestling/{{Yokozuna}}, depicted by Samoan-American Rodney Anoa'i. Somewhat subverted in that while he represented Japan and had the Japanese Wrestling/MrFuji in his corner, he actually was billed as being from Polynesia. This lead to a funny moment of irony during his match against Bret Hart at [=WrestleMania=] IX when the fans chanted "USA" to taunt Yokozuna (as Bret isn't American and Yoko was).
777** Incidentally, Mr. Fuji himself qualifies for this, as he's actually American born in Hawaii (though of Japanese descent).
778** Bret Hart is a dual citizen as his mom was from New York State, though Bret was reared in Calgary.
779* Wrestling/KofiKingston was originally billed as being from Jamaica, an artifact from NECW that probably got him hired since WWE apparently wanted Jamaican wrestlers at the time. He was actually born in Ghana (and raised in America), which WWE finally admitted.
780* New York Bodyguard Ezekiel Jackson, played by a Guyanese Wrestler, but eventually WWE decided to drop the charade.
781* Mexican wrestler Wrestling/{{Hunico}}'s bodyguard/running buddy Camacho was billed from Juárez, Mexico, but was played by the Tongan Tevita Fifita.
782* Shantelle Taylor (real name: Shantelle Larissa Malawski), a Canadian of Polish descent, was originally meant to debut in WWE's Cruiserweight division under a mask and body suit as a supposed Japanese competitor and [[SamusIsAGirl would eventually be unmasked to be revealed as a woman]]. Taylor was released before she made it to TV. (She did spend time in [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]] as Wrestling/TaylorWilde but was billed from her hometown of Toronto.)
783* In TNA the stable Mexican America had no Mexican members. On top of that only one of them was even ethnically Mexican, Anarquia, who was an American from California. Both Hernandez and [[Wrestling/TheaTrinidad Rosita]] are Americans of Puerto Rican decent, but were from Texas and New York. Hernandez was even still wearing tights with the Puerto Rican flag on them when the angle began. Finally Wrestling/{{Sar|ahStock}}ita is Canadian and not even Hispanic. However her inclusion can be justified because she was the only one that could fluently speak Spanish.
784* Wrestling/KillerKhan, a Japanese wrestler playing a Mongolian.
785* Wrestling/TheOneManGang, a white guy from South Carolina was portrayed as Akeem the African dream.
786* Wrestling/{{CMLL}}'s Legión de Puerto Rico and Los Boricuas {{power stable}}s were almost entirely made up of non Puerto Ricans. Even after they returned as El Comando Caribeño, a good deal of the members still weren't from the Caribbean (although Veneno was from Panama and El Hijo del Pierroth from The Dominican Republic). In the case of Comandante Pierroth, it could be considered a case of BoomerangBigot and LesCollaborateurs since he was known as a Mexican before joining but all the same, Julio Estrada was the only Puerto Rican in of these groups initially and wasn't even the main focus. With the return of Camando Caribeño Estrada wasn't even around any longer, Zeuxis taking his place as the only Puerto Rican. Veteran Puerto Rican wrestler Rico Suave also associated with them when passing through Mexico, bringing the real Puerto Ricans to 16% of the group's alumni, Caribs 25%.
787* Bizarrely enough, in the Russian wrestling promotion Northern Storm Wrestling (NSW), there's a Russian wrestler named "Antonio, El Campeon del Pueblo" (Real name: Anton Deryabin), playing a ''Puerto Rican'', and looking like a Russian {{Expy}} of Mexico's Blue Demon with a few extra pounds, and speaking Spanish with a odd mix of Russian and Mexican accent.
788* Wrestling/NikitaKoloff, the most famous "Russian" wrestler of the [[Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance NWA]] and Wrestling/{{WCW}}, was played by a Minneapolis native. His "uncle" Wrestling/{{Ivan|Koloff}} was Canadian.
789* Wrestling/{{CHIKARA}}:
790** [[Wrestling/JuanFranciscoDeCoronado "The Ecuadorian Aristocrat" Juan Francisco de Coronado]], an American playing an Ecuadorian...until he "lost" his Ecuadorian citizenship due to not paying taxes for ten years.
791** Wrestling/{{Jaka}}, an American playing a Chadian.
792** Wrestling/{{Tursas}}, an American playing a Finnish Viking monster.
793* Wrestling/VladimirKozlov, an Ukrainian playing a Russian
794* Wrestling/RusevAndLana are Bulgarian and American, respectively, but were both billed in the [=WWE=] from Russia.
795* Wrestling/JinderMahal, a Indian-Canadian, is billed from Punjab, India.
796* Wrestling/ApolloCrews' gimmick is that he's a member of Nigerian royalty, being billed from Benue State, Nigeria, but he's actually an American -- he was born in Sacramento, California and raised in the Atlanta area. His bodyguard Commander Azeez/Dabba-Kato was born in Poland, though his father was Nigerian.
797* Wrestling/MuhammadHassan was actually from New York and of Italian descent, despite playing a [[MiddleEasternTerrorists terrorist]] gimmick.
798[[/folder]]
799
800[[folder:Radio]]
801* Creator/OliviaColman plays the AxCrazy Polish secretary in the radio sitcom ''Hut 33''; she does so with an accent that sounds more [[FakeRussian Russian]] than Polish, possibly justified by the RuleOfFunny.
802[[/folder]]
803
804[[folder:Theater]]
805* ''Theatre/{{Elisabeth}}'':
806** All over the place. The most notable case: All three of the principal Elisabeths in the German/Austrian productions (the ''Bavarian'' princess who became empress of ''Austria'') are Dutch - Pia Douwes, Maya Hakvoort, and Annemieke van Dam. Actual Austrians are rare in the cast.
807** The real Luigi Lucheni was Italian. In the musical he's almost always played by a German actor (or a Turkish actor, in the case of Serkan Kaya).
808** Inevitable in the international productions. The Japanese versions (both [[Creator/TakarazukaRevue Takarazuka]] and Toho) have Japanese actors playing Austrians/Italians/Germans. Ditto with the South Korean versions.
809* Inevitable in productions in Japan, Korea, or anywhere else where you don't have a great deal of foreigners from every possible nation who are fluent enough in the local language to fill any role. At times, this has caused Western fans to jump on a production where an all-Japanese cast play characters of a variety of ethnicities, in some cases saying it's okay for Japanese actors to play white, Middle-Eastern, or Chinese characters, but if they play black characters, it's "whitewashing". However, local audiences have no problem with it.
810* The Moorish title character in ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' is often played by a white man (with or without {{blackface}}) in settings without many African actors. The first actor of African descent to be recorded playing Othello was in 1825, more than 200 years after the play was written. One thing to note is that "Moor" in Shakespeare's time usually referred to North-African Berbers, while most people of African decent in the Anglosphere derive from sub-Saharan Africa, so even modern actors commonly look very different from how the role was probably envisioned.
811* Similarly, Monostatos in ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute'' is referred to as a moor in the libretto, but is not always portrayed as black. It helps that (in North America, at least) operas rely on subtitles, so phrases like "the wicked moor" can be given as "the wicked Monostatos".
812* Controversy surrounded ''Theatre/MissSaigon'' when it was being transported to Broadway after a successful run in London. The Actor's Equity Association would not allow Jonathan Pryce, who had created the role of [[HonestJohnsDealership The Engineer]] in London, to play the role on Broadway. According to them, allowing Pryce, a white man, made up to look like an Asian in the show, would be an affront to Asian actors. A counterargument was that the Engineer is of mixed descent (French-Vietnamese), and Pryce was being discriminated against for being white. After pressure from Cameron Mackintosh, the producer, the general public, and its own members, the AEA relented and Jonathan Pryce was allowed to recreate his role on Broadway.
813* Creator/LeaSalonga, who is Filipina, has been cast as Vietnamese (''Theatre/MissSaigon''), French (''Theatre/LesMiserables''), Chinese (''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', ''Literature/FlowerDrumSong''), and Arab (''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'').
814* The character of Christmas Eve in ''Theatre/AvenueQ'' is an immigrant who sings about how her life sucks, in part, because she worked in a Korean deli (or, in some versions, a Chinese restaurant) upon coming to America, despite being Japanese. In the Australia/New Zealand tour, she is played by Filipina Christina O'Neill.
815* In ''Theatre/SundayInTheParkWithGeorge'', this is guaranteed to happen, because the first act is set entirely in France with French characters (with two Americans and two Germans in the company), and the second act is set in America, with American characters.
816* In the premiere of ''Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World'', Musa, an Egyptian, was played by an East Indian actor, and Gamila, also Egyptian, was played by a white American actress.
817* Music/SoundHorizon usually does this for their live shows out of necessity. The band is Japanese, but almost all of the RockOpera albums are set outside of East Asia (Ancient Greece, 14th century Germany, France, etc). Obviously, it's rather difficult to find German or French performers that can sing live in fluent Japanese, so Japanese people playing Westerners it is.
818* In Creator/HaroldPinter's ''Celebration'', Suki, who is of Japanese descent, is usually played by a white actress.
819* In Book-It Repertory Theatre's adaptation of ''Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet'', the Chinese Henry Lee was played by a Filipino actor, while Keiko Okabe, who is obviously Japanese, was played by a Korean.
820* In the 2015 US tour of ''Theatre/{{Matilda}}'', one of the three girls in rotation for the eponymous role was a Filipina, Gabby Gutierrez.
821[[/folder]]
822
823[[folder:Video Games]]
824* In ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', there is not a single character who is of the same nationality as their voice actor. The Australian Sniper is actually American, the German Medic is actually [[Creator/RobinAtkinDownes a Brit]], and so on. This was done on purpose, to make the characters' accents sound stereotypically exaggerated. This even goes for the American accents in the game!
825** The Scout and Engineer are both Americans voiced by Americans, but both actors are from different parts of the US than their characters. The Californian Nathan Vetterlein voices the Scout, a Bostonian trying to pretend to be a New Yorker, for example. Grant Goodeve, the voice actor for the Texan Engineer, isn't even Texan himself; he was born in Connecticut.
826** Who knows where the Pyro is from, anyways?
827* Speaking of the British Creator/RobinAtkinDownes, he also voiced the Russian [[MissionControl Nikolai]] in ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 3''.
828* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' has Sniper Wolf, a Kurdish sniper voiced by Tasia Valenza, a ''New Yorker''. She sounds like an American trying to sound like a ''Russian'' trying to do an Iraqi accent.
829--> '''Sniper Wolf:''' Doz damn Amerikanz!
830* It's probably not surprising that something as {{Camp}} as ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' has this as well. It features the English Creator/TimCurry as Russian, the Welsh Jonathan Pryce as English, the Swedish Peter Stormare also as a Russian, and the Native Hawaiian-Chinese-English Creator/KellyHu as Japanese. Averted by Japanese-American Creator/GeorgeTakei playing the Japanese Emperor. This is just fine, however, since the setting is non-stop HamToHamCombat, and Tim Curry's Russian accent is ''hilarious''.
831* Sheila from ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'' is voiced by British actress Edita Brychta speaking with an Australian accent.
832* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': Even the most famous video game character of all, Mario, is an example of this. He, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi are all given their unmistakable Italian accents by French-American voice actor Creator/CharlesMartinet.
833* In ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter: The Omega Strain'' and ''Dark Mirror'', Canadian-American actress Creator/JenniferHale voices both Mara Aramov ([[FakeRussian Russian]]) and Maggie Powers ([[FakeBrit British]]).
834* Happens in the North American versions of Creator/{{Atlus}}'s ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' games, which occur in Japan but are voiced by American actors.
835* Whereas some of ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}''[='=]s voice actors share heritage with their characters, most don't. Some standout examples include Mercy (a Swiss medic voiced by German-American actress Creator/LuciePohl), Sombra (a Mexican hacker voiced by Colombian-American actress Carolina Ravassa) and Zarya (a Russian weightlifter voiced by British-Bulgarian actress Dolya Gavanski).
836[[/folder]]
837
838[[folder:Web Original]]
839* An InUniverse example comes from an episode from ''WebAnimation/BrawlOfTheObjects'', "Rookie Mistakes". When [[spoiler:Chocolatey and Baguette]] are eliminated, and right when they have the freezing tubes dropped on them (but before they are frozen), [[spoiler:the latter reveals that he isn't French and tried using all the French stereotypes he knew to make the others think that he's French]].
840* Discussed in ''{{Website/Cracked}}'', which calls the accent dissonance arising from Fake Nationality [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18721_the-5-stupidest-ways-movies-deal-with-foreign-languages_p2.html The Single Stupidest Way Movies Deal with Foreign Languages]].
841* Occurs in-universe in ''WebAnimation/TheMostPopularGirlsInSchool''. Saison Margeurite tries to pass herself off as French when she's from Montreal.
842[[/folder]]
843
844[[folder:Western Animation]]
845* On ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'', the Vietnamese-American Diane Nguyen is voiced by white American Creator/AlisonBrie. The creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg has stated that if he was creating the show now he would cast an Asian actress.
846* In the original ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'', the Scottish Scrooge [=McDuck=] was played by Creator/AlanYoung, a Canadian-American who was born in England. Averted in [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017 the 2017 series]], where he's played by [[Creator/DavidTennant an actual Scot]]. On the other hand, in the 2017 series Flintheart Glomgold (who was retconned from Boer to Scottish in the 80s series) is returned to his South African Roots... while ''in-universe'' pretending to be Scottish as a way of one-upping Scrooge.
847---> '''Glomgold''': "He thinks he's ''so'' rich, and ''so'' Scottish! Well I'm wearing a kilt, [=McDuck=]! '''A kilt!'''"
848* Used ''a lot'' in ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeResolute''. The entire production used four voice actors: Creator/CharlieAdler (Cobra Commander [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeRenegades for the first time]], Flint, Gung-Ho, Stalker, and Hard Master) Creator/EricBauza (Storm Shadow, Destro, and Tunnel Rat), Creator/SteveBlum (Duke, Ripcord, Roadblock, Zartan, Wild Bill, and Doc), and Creator/GreyDeLisle (Scarlett, Baroness, Dail Tone, and Cover Girl). Both Adler and Blum are Jewish-American, Bauza is Filipino-Canadian, and [=DeLisle=] is an American of mixed Dutch/French/Irish/Mexican/Norwegian descent and outside of {{Gender Flip}}ping Dial Tone and ''Resolute'' following ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra''[='=]s lead of {{Race Lift}}ing Ripcord into an African-American, the characters still retain the nationalities and races of most other incarnations (Destro being Scottish; Baroness being Russian; Doc, Roadblock, and Stalker being African-American; Tunnel Rat being Chinese-American; Zartan being Australian[[note]]despite one file card saying he's French[[/note]]; and Storm Shadow and Hard Master being Japanese).
849* White American actor Toby Huss voices the Laotian Kahn in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''. Similarly, series co-creator Creator/MikeJudge impersonates Creator/GeorgeTakei when voicing Kahn's Laotian friend Ted Wassanasong.
850* Done in-universe in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', where Bolin (half-Fire Nation, half-Earth Kingdom) plays "Nuktuk, Hero of the South(ern Water Tribe)". A important note here is that both Water Tribes are by far the darkest skinned of the peoples in the Avaverse and Bolin and his co-star Ginger are both [[RaceLift fair skinned]].
851* ''Literature/TheMagicSchoolBus'': Creator/LisaYamanaka is Japanese-Canadian, but she voices Wanda, who is ''Chinese''-American.
852* Due to time constraints the crew of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' were unable to get a Swahili voice actress for Zecora, so they asked Brenda Crichlow[[note]]who's still black, but not Swahili[[/note]] to "ad-lib some African sounding gibberish." Then-producer Lauren Faust justified it by [[http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110127004434/mlp/images/6/6d/Comment_by_Lauren_Faust_describing_the_language_Zecora_speaks.png imagining Zecora's not speaking Swahili, but "Zebra".]]
853* Creator/NickJr:
854** In ''WesternAnimation/BluesClues'', French-accented Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper are voiced by Nick Balaban (the former) and Penelope Jewkes and Spencer Kayden (the latter), who are American.
855** ''WesternAnimation/BubbleGuppies'': The AmbiguouslyBrown Molly is voiced by white voice actresses Brianna Gentiella, Bailey Gambertoglio, and Taylor Kaplan. Oona, who is implied to be Asian, is voiced by white voice actresses Reyna Shaskan, Tori Feinstein, and Colby Kipnes.
856** ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrol'': African American Mayor Goodway is voiced by the white Deann Degruijter. From Season 7 onward, she's voiced by the black actress Kim Roberts.
857** ''WesternAnimation/RustyRivets'': the Latina Ruby Ramirez is voiced by Ava Preston, who is white
858** ''WesternAnimation/AbbyHatcher'': The Chinese-American title character is voiced by white voice actress Macy Drouin.
859** ''WesternAnimation/BluesCluesAndYou'': French-accented Mr. Salt is voiced by Canadian voice actor Brad Adamson. Averted with Mrs. Pepper, who is voiced by French-Canadian voice actress Gisele Rosseau.
860* Common with Creator/PBSKids shows as of the 2010s:
861** ''WesternAnimation/TheCatInTheHatKnowsALotAboutThat'': the AmbiguouslyBrown Nick was voiced by the White Jacob Ewanuik in the first two seasons. Luckily, in the third and final season, he's voiced by Deandray Hamilton, who is Black.
862** ''WesternAnimation/WildKratts'': the Hispanic Aviva is voiced by Creator/AthenaKarkanis, who is of Greek and Egyptian descent. Koki, who's Black, is voiced by the White Heather Bambrick until Season 7, when they took note of this and replaced her with Sabryn Rock, who herself is Black.
863** ''WesternAnimation/DanielTigersNeighborhood'': The black Miss Elaina was voiced by Addison Holley, who's white, for the first four seasons. In season 5, they replaced her with an actual black girl, Markeda [=McKay=].
864** ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': In season 1, Sydney (who is black) was voiced by Dalila Bela (who starred in fellow PBS series ''Series/OddSquad''), who is of English, French, Brazilian, Panamanian and Spanish ancestry. In season 2, they replaced her with an actual black girl, Vienna Leacock. However, the Hispanic Mindy and the Asian Lillian were voiced by white girls (Jaeda Lily Miller and Amelia Shoichet-Stoll) for the entirety of the series.
865** ''WesternAnimation/LetsGoLuna'' - Can apply to the whole show, because all of the voice actors are from Canada, and the characters on the show span the whole globe except for Canada. In particular, Carmen is Mexican but is voiced by Saara Chaudry, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent.
866** ''WesternAnimation/XavierRiddleAndTheSecretMuseum'': The AmbiguouslyBrown Xavier and Yadina are voiced by Aidan Vissers and Zoe Hatz, who are both white. However, the historical figures are almost always played by people of their respective heritage -- for example, the indigenous Isabella Beaver as Sacagawea.
867* All the ''WesternAnimation/RoadRovers'', except for Hunter, are voiced by American actors instead of their nationalities, including black actor Creator/KevinMichaelRichardson as [[FakeRussian Exile]] and Creator/JeffBennett as German Blitz.
868* The only major character in ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' voiced by a Japanese actor was BigBad Aku, who was voiced by the late Creator/{{Mako}}. The title character is voiced by African-American Creator/PhilLaMarr; when the series was revived, Aku was voiced by his ''VideoGame/FusionFall'' voice actor, Greg Baldwin, who's white and Ashi, introduced in the final season, is voiced by Canadian-American Creator/TaraStrong.
869* Creator/CreeSummer is an African American voice actress, but she has played several characters who aren't of that race, like Penny from ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' and Elmyra from ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures''.
870* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'': Indian-Americans Isaac and Sari Sumdac are played by Creator/TomKenny and Tara Strong, who are white-Americans.
871* On ''WesternAnimation/VoltronLegendaryDefender'', Cuban American Lance and Afro-Samoan American Hunk are voiced by Caucasians Jeremy Shada and Tyler Labine, while Japanese American Shiro is voiced by Josh Keaton, who is of mixed Peruvian/Ashkenazi Jewish descent and Italian American Pidge is voiced by Creator/BexTaylorKlaus, who is of German Jewish descent, respectively.
872* ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'': For the Atlas Oceanic dub, black voice actress Creator/KimberlyBrooks voices the white Stormy.
873[[/folder]]
874
875[[folder:Real Life]]
876* In the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair Ibiza affair]], Austrian politician Heinz-Christian Strache met with a woman he was told was a Russian oligarch's niece and offered her political favors in return for money. The meeting was actually a sting operation, and the Russian woman was purportedly played by a Bosnian agricultural student.
877* Happens occasionally in the UsefulNotes/OlympicGames, when a country will recruit star athletes from other countries and grant them citizenship so they meet the [=IOC=]'s requirements to represent their new country. For example, in the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Chinese men's hockey team had [[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/sports/olympics/chinese-mens-hockey-team.html four players]] with no Chinese ethnicity or ties to the country.
878[[/folder]]

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