John Leguizamo Quotations

Guys who have tons of power, who're charming, but at the same time incredibly Machiavellian.

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,

He was like twitching and frothing and it was my father, ... I went like all pale. I felt all the blood leave my body. And then my father was like, 'How dare you?' And he stormed out of the theater and I followed him and we fought and argued and hugged and he cried and we made up.

He wanted to be a lawyer, couldn't afford it, so he started dealing to go to college - good intention.

My parents talked to me in Spanish and I answered in English,

My mother came in early in the process,

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.

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.

Well, look at me for crying out loud,

When you're that type of personality and come into any work environment,

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.

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.

I've been bouncing off the walls since childhood. Expelled from school. In trouble. Kid with no future. Comedy was the only answer.

There are just so many intellectual things with the script that aren't normal, ... breaking all the rules, and it still works.

I mean it was my family but it wasn't, ... I wasn't saying this is my life. I was saying this is a fictitious dysfunctional Latin family, you know, so (family members) wouldn't get wind of it. But they caught on. They knew it was them in disguise.

But if I'm out here, let me be. I want to bite as many people as I can. Bite them back, so to speak.

I play kind of a genius doctor ? really bright and kind of self-serving, ... I'm bringing in a lot of gadgets.

He thinks he can use the jail for networking to be somebody. In that way, he's always operating.

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.

There was no point. It's already done. Let's leave that alone. I mean, if you're not going to come there with something new, then just leave it alone.

With kids, the days are long, but the years are short.

When you feel the world is against you or you give up hope, you look at your heroes and say, "They were able to do it. They had hard times and a lot of opposition, but they got through it." Then you feel, "I can do it too."

It takes time to understand yourself, to go inside yourself and to question yourself and really take yourself to task. That's self-expression.

The difficulty of being a Latin kid, a Latin man in this country [U.S].

America may not realize it yet, but Latin prototypes are being created right now, and not just by me. They are these mambo kings and salsa queens, Aztec lords and Inca princesses, every Hernandez and Fernandez, whom this country will one day come to understand and respect.

Independent film is for actors that love to act.

Great acting is being able to create a character. Great character is being able to be yourself.

I love life, and I embrace every minute of it.

Is there a God? Yeah, but there's not just one God. There's a whole lot of gods, because one God couldn't have possibly made so many mistakes all by Himself. This had to be done by committee.

Marriage is wild. I thought it was this perfect land of happiness and joy. Wrong! After you say you do, you don't for a long time.

Latins for Republicans - it's like roaches for Raid.

I think Brad [Furman] crafted an amazing film [The Infiltrator]. It's so complex, it's incredibly thrilling, incredibly touching and it's what people have been trying to do for years in Hollywood, is to try to capture what it's like to be undercover, what is that duality of life? And I think that Brad really caught that.

I like drama. I love being in a drama where I get to be the funny guy. That's what I really love the most.

After kids leave the house, they can decide to do whatever they want, but while they're under my roof, they're going to be lawyers or writers or something, something important, anything except actors.

Self-expression is something that you've crafted, something that you've found. You've practiced on that piano for hours, you didn't hang out with your buddies, you didn't go after the girls, you stayed in your own little geeky room or you wrote for hours.

That's the happiest I am, when I'm doing great work.

You know, I am kind of a bi-polarish schitzerphrenic. I run the gamut of being incredibly shy and withdrawn to being a crazy-eccentric exhibitionist. And I have always been like that.

It doesn't make sense. [Republicans are] not for us. You're not for my values. We're working class people mostly and blue collar. We're your cops, we're your firemen, we're your carpenters and the things we need - we need to protect our unions, we need to protect our Medicare, we need to protect the working class person.

I see the new Latin artist as a pioneer, opening up doors for others to follow. And when they don't open, we crowbar our way in.

Acting is kind of a calling for me so I'm just happy to be there and do great work.

We are taking our culture and suturing it to America. Like gum on the bottom of a shoe, we are not going to disappear. Unlike other peoples who totally assimilated, we are more interested in co-assimilation.

At Murry Bergtraum High I wanted to be as different from my father as possible. So I acted out in school, I was very anti-authority.

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.

I love independent films, it's the only place as an actor you're totally allowed to breathe.

You grow up Latin in this country and you're a third class citizen from the word go, and so you have to deal with everything around you from that point of view and trying to feel entitled.

Rehearsals make a huge difference.

There were no Latin people on 'Star Trek,' that this was proof that they weren't planning to have us around for the future.

To be a comedian, you gotta jokesmith, there's no way around it.

At Murry Bergtraum [High School] if you were really funny you sat at this table at with all of the funniest dudes, the toughest, the coolest - everybody sat at that table. It was like the ghetto Algonquin Round Table. [Comedy] was my entry, my membership card.

The thing I gravitated to was being the class clown. It was very competitive.

Don't confuse the beginning of my world with the breakup of yours.

I had a great movement teacher - he showed me how to walk so I wasn't becoming like a cartoon.

I would be jokesmithing. I had files with tons of disses that I would try to write as I was on the train going to school.

My parents were incredibly strict, almost military style.

Most of the great directors I've worked with - De Palma, Spike Lee - like rehearsals.

First I went to C.W. Post and I was a psychology and theater major and then I transferred to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts as a drama major.

I'd be terrified even now for a Latin kid wanting to be an actor, but back then? Forget it. They must have thought I was going to be working in restaurants and driving cabs for the rest of my life.

I was working at Kentucky Fried Chicken when my math teacher said, "You're failing in school, you're messing up, why don't you just try this?" I said, "Alright, let me try it," and I started going to acting classes and I loved it. I thought, "I may not make it but I love doing it."

The New York Times made you or broke you.

I wasn't even in a theater because I guess nobody believed in me, so I was in the hallway of a theater on a platform that they would move so the main stage show could go on at eight o'clock and I'd be gone.

I don't know if tennis players feel like that but when you have a great opponent - although I didn't feel like he [ Ben Mendelsohn ] was an opponent - you just know your game is going to jack up and it's just going to raise the bar. I couldn't wait for that elevation.

So many people, my friends and family, were all saying, "You're so funny. Why don't you become a comedian or an actor?" But it wasn't a reality at the time, it wasn't a road that Latin people were accepted in.

I had to work with Ben Mendelsohn who's one of the great actors of our time. I had a lot of scenes with him and I was thrilled to be on the set with him; I just wanted to see how we were going to play it.

I knew Linda Cardellini from when we did ER together - she was always great, such a cool spirit.

It might have been really cool back in the '50s when it was less populated but I don't know.

I grew up with a lot of cats like that and they always were so surprising, magnetic, and electrifying. You can't be with them too long because they burn you out but the energy, the impulsivity, and the freedom connecting them to their animal energy is just so powerful to watch. It's dangerous to live like that but it's riveting to watch.

I've been hurt so many times I don't have the balls for it anymore.

I had a whole new respect for directors.

I did an HBO movie called Undefeated that I directed. It was too hard.

I gotta tell, that's one of the things in Hollywood that has not been a barrier. I've gotten lots of offers, and I did try my hand at it, I directed two commercials. I won best commercial of ad week [laughs] on my first try.

I'm hoping my play opens up conversations, I hope it makes people question textbooks, I hope it makes #OscarsSoWhite and #HollywoodSoWhite question things. I hope my play sparks conversation between Latin kids and Latin parents and people start doing their own due diligence as well, I think it's everyone's responsibility.

I read that 36% of Latin kids drop out of high school, and we're the most bullied minority in schools right now. And my son had troubles in elementary school. So that made me really question being Latin in the United States.

The more times you do something, the more likely it is you're going to get it wrong.

I had my neck hurt for like five years, I could barely move my neck from doing this stunt, I almost died twice doing stunts, it's really dangerous.

It's the flip side of illegal success. This man [Pablo Escobar ] turned a small-time drug thing into a large industry. An international, successful industry. And he almost took a country, Columbia, he took it almost hostage, took over it. It was incredible.

Pablo Escobar is one of the great stories of all time. It's a bizarre, dark version of success.

Bryan Cranston is generous, he's funny. When we did a wedding scene [in The Infiltrator ], at the end of the movie with a big set piece, he put the veil off the bride, he put it on, he pretended like we were getting married, he's just a goof.

You just want to go off and be intuitive and wild, and that's what Bryan Cranston brings to the game.

Bryan Cranston has got such an incredible light touch. He comes in egoless, but with bold opinions, and he wants to play. He wants to play. And that's what I've seen in great actors all my life and what I've always tried to nurture and keep in myself is that joy of playing.

It's a product of being an actor, you know? A lot of your work doesn't end up on camera and some of the best things aren't always in the final product. But yeah, a lot of my stuff got cut and it was painful, but I know it was for the better of the movie.

[Brad Furman] wants to try stuff, he's willing to try stuff. And he wants electricity on the camera. And that's what I want, I want electricity whenever I'm performing.

My mom [comes] to see my shows because she's so proud, but I'm talking about losing my virginity, my ex-wife and our sexual problems, and she's sitting in the front row smiling. I just go, "Mom, you can't sit in the front row, you can't smile. You have to go way in the back and dress in black. If I see you it's like you're breaking in when I'm having sex with my wife. It's just wrong."

Tennessee Williams, one of my favorite playwrights, [lived] down there. You always heard about the Keys and how amazing they are and, well, it's like a highway with some bars on it.

It was at a performance art space that's no longer around, Gusto House... All of these great performers from all over the country lived on the Lower East Side, and they would take somebody's living room that opened right onto the street, open the door and charge tickets and put up chairs.

I did the bible as told through Hispanic people and they laughed and applauded. I thought, "Oh my god, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

I did Brad's first film The Take and I'm glad Brad [Furman] has not calmed down. I don't want him to ever calm down.

[Brad Furman] is incredibly collaborative, man. He's so respectful of talent, he has so much admiration for talent. He nurtures you, he lets you give input. Of course we'll debate if we disagree, that's just a healthy atmosphere to air your differences.

I really love it, I love working with directors that are very collaborative and allow me input. I've done over 75 films, it's just like you're an apprentice. You learn so much about camerawork, lenses, and I'm always talking about DPs and directors and they always give me lists. I think pretty soon, I'll be ready to move away from being in front of the camera.

I was always writing. I was writing in high school because it was a really competitive school for class clowns; I used to have to write all of my snaps and my disses the night before and then act like I was making it up the next day.

When I started performing I was like, "Holy hell, how am I going to survive this?" I was giving it my all in 15 minutes but now I had to do it for two hours.

You can't really walk anywhere. Where are you going to go? Everything closes at a certain hour and it's a highway with bars on it; that's what it is.

I love life, man, and I embrace every minute of it so maybe I bring that on the set. I love people and I want to have a good time.

I love his [Brad Furman] ferocious desire for perfection and his love of vitality, it feeds me, man. It feeds him and it feeds the whole crew. And he's got huge respect for talent. And that's why talent goes in and gives it 300% percent.

Well I was about to be expelled from school, I had been arrested and a teacher said: "Why don't you try acting, instead of distracting the class? Why don't you use your comic talent for something more productive?" My maths teacher suggested I do comedy and I decided to have a go. I pursued it after that. I was about 17.

Some kids are fine, but often I don't like what I see in child actors. My kids are young and they are already showing an interest, so I have to try to discourage them, squash that in them.

I keep my kids out of the whole business entirely. Allegra and Lucas are five and six and I'm not interested in them doing any acting at all. I don't want my kids in show business. I keep them as far away from my work as possible.

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.

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.

Yes it did really. It was very exciting to find that my energy could be directed into something more useful and positive. I was starting to get panicked. I was thinking 'what am I going to do with my life?' I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then I became crazily obsessed with acting. I suddenly had a work ethic and then everything changed completely for the better because I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

In Moulin Rouge I could not change the name of Toulouse-Lautrec obviously to Toulouse-Lautrec- Martinez. But in ER I did that, my name is Dr Victor Clemente, so sometimes it is possible.