John Leguizamo

John Leguizamo
John Alberto Leguizamo is a Colombian-American actor, voice actor, producer, stand-up comedian, playwright and screenwriter. As of 2009, Leguizamo has appeared in over 75 films, produced over 10 films, starred on Broadway in several productions, made over a dozen television appearances, and has produced or starred in many other television shows...
NationalityColombian
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth22 July 1964
CountryColombia
ahead career character cover feeds hit life living local love month morning point reporter research spanish ton traveled tv work
a ton of research -- more than I've ever done before for anything. I've hit this point in my career where I just love doing research. It's what feeds me -- going and living the life of my character -- so for this I went to Ecuador a month or two ahead to work on my Spanish and get the feel for the place. I also traveled around with this local TV reporter who was doing the same thing Manolo does, and every morning we'd go to the morgue to cover murders.
acting character drives looking type
It's always the same thing that drives me -- a type of character or personality that I've never done before, or that allows me to try out some new acting technique. So I'm always experimenting and looking for that interesting hook.
character talking voice
I did 40 voices for Chris Wedge, the director of the first film, before coming up with the version we used. He was hard to please, I don't know why. I gave him really slow talking voices. then I thought perhaps Sid could be an Indian sounding sloth. To find out more about my character, I watched footage of sloths. I discovered that the food they store in their pouches rots and ferments and half the time they're drunk.
beautiful running character
We see them [animals] as the Ice Age is ending and we know that actually in the long run, they're not going to make it. And there's something beautiful about that, beautifully sad. The way the characters are woven together in the film adds to the emotion because they need each other. The message is that it doesn't matter what species you are, you can still love each other and that is a fantastic message.
character play hilarity
You have the hilarity and the great production. These films are distinctive because they are not just topical, they tell good stories and they let scenes play out physically. Apart from the dialogue, the characters also have a non-verbal existence, for example with Scrat.
latin character responsibility
I don't think it's my responsibility, but I definitely try to create my own projects that are Latin-based with a Latin crew and Latin cast. I try to give all my characters Latin names whenever I can and make sure that they are of Latin heritage. But that does not work with every project.
inspirational being-yourself character
Great acting is being able to create a character. Great character is being able to be yourself.
bouncing comedy expelled kid since walls
I've been bouncing off the walls since childhood. Expelled from school. In trouble. Kid with no future. Comedy was the only answer.
dad loser loves poet
Every dad who loves his daughter is not going to want her to go with the penniless slacker loser poet bum, when she could go out with someone who's successful.
type work
When you're that type of personality and come into any work environment,
came early mother
My mother came in early in the process,
brilliant cop familiar genre john move movies taking turning urban western
I was familiar with that and 'Rio Bravo.' 'Rio Bravo' was what John Carpenter did, that brilliant move of taking a western and turning it into an urban flick. And from there you got, you know, all the cop genre movies of the time.
came crew encouraged night
Yeah, that came out of a reading. It was great. It's such a fun crew to be with, and we all went out the night before and that really encouraged us to go out and get drunk.
bitten hollywood people stay zombie
If I was in Hollywood and I got bitten by a zombie, I would want to stay a zombie and then take down as many people as I could,