There's a lot of debate as to whether or not it's "right" for an actor to play a nationality other than their own. People seem okay for, say, an Englishman to put on an accent to play a Greek, or an Italian, or a South African, but the lines begin to blur - and grow controversial - when actors take on roles that require them to tweak their appearance. The problem is linked to the the idea of "stereotyping," of course: what's the appropriate "amount" of physical transformation? As a result of the associated semantics, this whole debacle has emerged as a fairly headache-inducing one. There's no right or wrong answer, really, because - at the end of the day - it all comes to down to a matter of opinion, though there are clear examples spanning the history of film where we can directly say, "no, that was not a good idea, Hollywood" - John Wayne as Genghis Khan springs to mind, as does Mickey Rooney's "performance" in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Still, there are some actors who have spent their careers playing a wide range of nationalities without so much as a peep from the critics - these guys, for one reason or another, have been given free reign in the nationality department, presumably because they adhere to Hollywood's idea of "foreign" or because nobody really seems sure as to what nationalities said actors are supposed to be in the first place. Whatever the reason, here are 8 actors who have played an insane amount of nationalities (to varying degrees of success)... Please Note: This isn't a definitive list, and it's certainly not a list of actors who have played "the most" nationalities - it's simply a look at some of the most interesting picks to have come our way over the years.
