• Actor John Leguizamo stated he feels "humiliated" by his position in Mike Nichols' 1991 movie Concerning Henry.
• Leguizamo performed a robber at a time when he says working as a Latino in Hollywood "was like Jim Crow."
• "I did it as a result of I received no jobs. There have been no jobs for Latin folks," he stated.

One among actor John Leguizamo's first important roles in a serious film is now marred within the actor's thoughts.

The performer revealed on the Fly on the Wall podcast with Dana Carvey and David Spade that his supporting half in director Mike Nichols' 1991 movie Regarding Henry doesn't sit properly with him amongst his physique of labor, as he thinks the character is a poor consultant for his neighborhood.

"You realize, I used to be type of humiliated by it. I did it as a result of I received no jobs. There have been no jobs for Latin folks. There simply weren't," he stated in response to Spade asking him in regards to the movie, which starred Harrison Ford as a lawyer who loses the flexibility to speak after he's shot when a robber (Leguizamo) makes an attempt to carry up a New York Metropolis bodega.

"There have been no alternatives," Leguizamo pressured of looking for work within the early '90s as a Latino actor.

Leguizamo stated the panorama of Hollywood on the time "was like Jim Crow," and cited that the listing of characters out there "was like white physician, white lawyer, white husband, white lover, Latino drug vendor."

The comic and actor stated he begged his agent to get him within the room with these casting initiatives, so he might recite David Mamet monologues in an try and win roles, however that his crew instructed him that these in energy wouldn't see him in any respect.

"They only weren't casting us," Leguizamo instructed Carvey and Spade. "After I received Concerning Henry, it was a drug vendor. I shoot this white man. It was like, I'm perpetrating what they wish to see, which is destructive Latino pictures. I didn't wish to take part in that, however I actually wished to fulfill Mike Nichols as a result of he's one of many greats."

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Leguizamo stated he in the end took the half due to the chance to work with Nichols and Ford, however he doesn't like wanting again on it.

"Even speaking about it offers me PTSD," Leguizamo added, earlier than Carvey requested if he was ever requested to "Latin it up just a little extra" for a component.

"They didn't should say that to me as a lot. I used to be the flavour they had been searching for, like a ghetto hoodrat," he remembered. "I had been working towards that. All my performing academics, after I was 17, they had been like, 'Nobody can perceive you with that accent. Do you actually converse that method?'"

Since then, Leguizamo mounted a profitable profession on the large display screen, touchdown components in Carlito's Approach, Romeo + Juliet, Summer season of Sam, Moulin Rouge!, and a Golden Globe-nominated position in 1995's To Wong Foo, Thanks for Every part! Julie Newmar. He additionally received an Emmy for his 1998 stand-up particular John Leguizamo: Freak.

Leguizamo has lengthy spoken out about equality within the leisure business, together with urging the TV Academy to honor extra Latino expertise in a 2024 open letter one 12 months after he slammed the latest Super Mario Bros. animated movie over a scarcity of Latino illustration.

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"No, I cannot be watching," Leguizamo, who performed Luigi within the 1993 live-action Tremendous Mario Bros. movie, instructed TMZ when requested if he'd watch the 2023 animated adaptation of the Nintendo franchise. "They may've included a Latin character. I used to be groundbreaking, and so they stopped the groundbreaking."

Watch Leguizamo's full interview on Fly on the Wall above.

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