John Leguizamo Quotes & Sayings

I'm not really against a lot of things unless they are just pure exploitation and then they create their own copycat culture that comes from someone acting irresponsibly. That's dangerous when that happens. — John Leguizamo

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

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. — John Leguizamo

I wanted to enjoy the process. I wanted to enjoy just being on stage and giving back and the feedback. — John Leguizamo

The message is one of the beautiful things about the film. And I think part of the appeal is simply that they are prehistoric creatures, they are no longer around and that makes them magical and makes us feel quite emotional, because we know that those creatures did not survive in the long run, so there's poignancy in their fight for survival. — John Leguizamo

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." — John Leguizamo

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

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

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

The New York Times made you or broke you. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

I think as you mature as an actor things open up to you in a lot of ways, especially if you do work on yourself. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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

I walked around my apartment with food in my mouth asking myself: "How do I come up with this voice?" Then I found the voice. I called the director and said on the phone: "Guess who you're talking to Chris? Sid, that's right Sid!" And that's how I came up with the voice. That's a true story. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

I love cartoons. So when they came to me to make Ice Age and this sequel, I was so happy. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

I was just school class clown and that was it. Someday I'll get a job as a cab driver or whatever. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

My parents were incredibly strict, almost military style. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Latins for Republicans - it's like roaches for Raid. — John Leguizamo

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

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

I like helping people achieve their dreams just like people helped me. — John Leguizamo

I'm just more comfortable with people who are like me than the people who are not. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

I love theater. I think theater, when its done right, is the best, like a religious experience. When it is done badly, it's the worst thing. It's just an incredible experience. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Rehearsals make a huge difference. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Independent film is for actors that love to act. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Self-expression, to me, is something that you worked on, that you have mastered a skill to say something in the most artful way that you can. It's not just blurting stuff out and having verbal diarrhea. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

But when you are doing an animated voice, it has to have more energy than usual or it falls flat and doesn't work. For myself, I found that I had to put myself in the same physical or emotional state as Sid, in order to make that voice sound alive and authentic. So if there was a scene in which he was running, I would be running beforehand to sound out of breath. That's important because the audience can tell intuitively if it does not sound real. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

I had to get the voice back, the precise pitch of Sid's voice and I'd forgotten that I'd pitched him higher than my regular voice, so that was a little difficult to begin with. It was especially hard because we started recording in the morning so I had to warm up a lot and my usual voice is a little more gravelly. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

People can be anonymous when they go on blogs and say crazy things that they would never have the courage to say to your face. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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

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

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

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. — John Leguizamo

Sid is a prehistoric sloth. Sloths move really slowly and they store food in the cheek pouches. That's where I got the voice that you hear. He had to sound as though he was storing food. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Teachers are everything. I mean, you're a poor kid from the ghetto, your parents are busy working 24/7, working like a Mexican. — John Leguizamo

It used to be trained professionals doing animation and they were great. Now they have celebrities and famous actors doing the voices, but that does not always work. But I think this film turned out really well, partly because the three of us (me, Ray and Denis) are comedians who are used to doing solo acts and doing certain types of voices. The three of us are New York guys, we all came up the same way in the profession and we are all edgy and enjoy doing family movies. It was a good combination I think. — John Leguizamo

Well, I don't know why people insist on knowing themselves. It's hard enough to know what to wear. — John Leguizamo

I have a lot of heroes. I don't think people give enough of a tribute to their mentors. They try to act like they're spontaneous generations - they are faking liars. — John Leguizamo

Definitely if you're an athlete, you're gonna be having all the baseball fame you can have. That's the great thing about baseball and sports. You can measure ability. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Voices come to me but to maintain them is hard work. They go away just as easily, so I have to remember them and that takes work. With Sid, I needed to make sure you could understand what he is saying, his enunciation. Sometimes I couldn't even say my own name [his name] in his voice. It sounds like 'Shid', it sounds a bit like he has a lisp. — John Leguizamo

It's been great, I have to dig deep for really raw emotions and at the same time I have to use my intellect to say the ridiculous medical jargon while acting and treating a patient and then I have to try to have a personality and emotions as well. So it is definitely hard work. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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

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

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. — John Leguizamo

It's all about respect; he's looking for respect from his buddies. In the last one he just wanted to hang out, to be part of the group, but this time he wants more from his friends. And without giving the story away, he finally gets something that he has been looking for when the mini sloths kidnap him and take him to their tribal area. He gets to be the Fire King and they worship him and there is an amazing scene with a "call and response" sequence in the style of Cab Callow [the legendary American jazz singer and band leader] between him and his audience — John Leguizamo

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." — John Leguizamo

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

It's not quite the same as other kinds of performing, but I love animation. It is just a different kind of experience. The difference is that making a live action movie you are using your whole body. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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." — John Leguizamo

I love life, and I embrace every minute of it. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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

T is for me because I needed to do this. I really think actors shouldn't act unless they really need it in their lives. I think it has to be something that is so much a part of your chemistry, such a passion, that you can't live without it. You should not do it just because you are seeking fame or want to get rich. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

Very, that show is crazy. It was like doing finals every week. It was interesting. I really learned a lot. The dialogue is so technical. I was so impressed watching the other actors and how they managed, so I studied them. And I was blown away thinking: How do they do that? How do they put that extra spin on the complicated dialogue to make it interesting? — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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. — John Leguizamo

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