Al Pacino has defended his casting as a Jewish Nazi hunter in his new Amazon series Hunters.
In the thriller, the Scarface actor plays Mayer Offerman, a member of a group who track down hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials living in secret in 1970s New York.
The 79-year-old actor – whose ancestors are Sicilian – has faced some criticism over his casting as a Jewish character.
However, Al said he has ‘no problem’ with the role, adding that he shouldn’t be ‘limited’ by his ‘ethnicity’.
‘I sort of don’t think that way,’ the veteran actor told The Times.
‘If you’re limited to your ethnicity, you’re going to have a very narrow… you’re only going to be playing…’
He went on: ‘No, I have no problem with this. Maybe more in films because it’s more literal or more naturalistic, but if you play the oboe, you play the oboe. It doesn’t matter what you are, you’re in the orchestra, you’re doing the thing, you’re playing the music.’
His co-star Logan Lerman added that the criticism was ‘bulls**t’.
The series follows the Hunters as they try to stop Nazis from establishing a Fourth Reich in the US.
Al – who got an Oscar nom for his turn in The Irishman – stars as a Holocaust survivor, alongside Lerman, Jerrika Hinton and Josh Radnor.
Horror director Jordan Peele will executive produce the series, which was created by writer David Weil. American Horror Story filmmaker Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed the pilot.
Hunters drops on Amazon Prime 21 February.
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