palabras KELLVIN CHAVEZ

John Leguizamo may have enjoyed tremendous success as a comedian, but he's also a versatile actor having studied under the late Lee Strasberg. He's played everything from a killer pimp ('Carlito's Way') to a Navy Seal ('Executive Decision') to a lovable drag queen ('To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar').

A native of Bogota, Colombia raised in Queens, New York, Leguizamo has been a breakthrough performer for the Latino community in mainstream Hollywood. His latest project is 'The Happening', the new venture from critically acclaimed director M. Night Shymalan where he plays a father fleeing a global supernatural event. Being a Queens native already familiar with John, I had to chance to talk to him personally about family, M. Night Shymalan's incredible imagination and why as an actor you can't riff in one of his films.

Beware of movie spoilers.

You've been busy.

Yeah. 'The Take'. 'Babysitter'. This. This for a little bit and then I'll be done, until the fall.

After doing this film do you have a greater respect for mother nature?

I've always had crazy respect for nature. I'm an artist and artists are kind of naturally green by nature because when you care about people you care about things and you really value those things. So I think that I've always been green. I didn't expect nature to turn on us, but I guess that it does.

In the film you have to make a terrible choice, whether to protect your child or search for your wife. In the real world would you make the same choice?

That's a tough one, man, because I normally guess that a parent would say, 'I need to be alive to take care of this kid.' But at the same time can you live without your loved one, without your wife? I don't know. It's a tough one. You'd then have to hand your daughter, your beloved treasure to someone else to take care of. It's easy to sacrifice yourself. For me it is. For my kids I'd do whatever. That part isn't that hard, but it's the choice to stay alive to take care of my kid or do I sacrifice myself to get my wife and then leave my kid alone in the world. So that's a tough choice.

Were you already an M. Night fan before you got onboard for this?

Yeah. I saw 'Signs' and I loved the hell out of that movie, man. I just felt like there was some great acting, a buddy pic with Joaquin Phoenix and Mel Gibson who were amazing together and then all of a sudden you got the alien thing going on at the same time. I guess the blend of that was so well done and so artfully done that I wanted to be a part of a movie that had that great kind of acting, great storytelling and still scared the hell out of you.

How does M. Night create these nightmares so that someone like you can exorcise that fear?

I think that he taps into what scares him. He doesn't try to write a movie for other people. He tries to write a movie for himself. So that's why it always feels so personal and feels so real and so possible. He's tapping into the things that he feels. I think by doing that he taps into, like in the '50's and '60's the sci-fi movies were tapping into what Americans were feeling afraid of because there was some sort of nuclear holocaust, apocalypse that everyone in America where everyone was going to be radiated and mutated, all the mutants and zombies and now it's a little different. Our fears are different and he's tapping into that, this sort of end of the world kind of doom that could come from anywhere now. It could come from nature. It could come from war. It could come from terrorism. It could come from anything.

How did you get involved in this to begin with and what made you say I want to do this?

Well, Night said that after he wrote the character he thought of me, but then he asked me to audition too [laughs], I guess, just to be sure, just in case. I auditioned for him through a video-phone and I emailed it to him and he called me that Night and said, 'John, that was great. I really liked what you did. You got the part.' I said, 'Who is this?' He goes, 'It's Night.' I said no and I didn't believe it at first, but then I was sure that it was him and it was very exciting to be a part of his filmmaking because I think he's a real artist.

What's it like working side by side with someone like Mark Wahlberg?

He's a really cool guy. You think that maybe he's an edgy guy or a tough guy and whatnot, and he might be that too, but he's such a really accessible dude. He's just a regular guy.

Did you guys have a chance to riff during this?

You mean riff on the flick? No. You can't riff on an M. Night movie. An M. Night movie isn't a Cassavetes movie and you can't riff. He's very definitely about the dialogue and he's got his shots already setup. He gives you a storyboard at the beginning of the day, but you get to play within that, your emotional interpretation is all yours. That's where you get to vibe. It's like doing Shakespeare where you can vibe in the lines.

And your character is a math teacher. How did you get into that?

Well, I went to a lot of math teacher blogs and I read a lot of that stuff. I know some math teachers, but I also tutored math in college, believe it or not. You might not believe that.

What college did you go to?

I went to two colleges. All the kids that I was tutoring failed [laughs] in one college and I left that and transferred to NYU.

You have The Ministers coming up, where are you guys at with that?

Right. I think that’s still in the process of post-production.

How do you pull a movie like that off? Playing two people.

That wasn't easy, man. Most of the time it comes out pretty corny and hokey and so we had to work extra hard not to make it cheesy. We got a great storyboard artist to come and draw every scene and Franc had a really great concept of doing that. His concept was to make sure that the double playing me, that you never saw any piece of him on film, that you just saw very little of him. I think that's what made it really work. I think that's what really sold it because when you're watching it you don't question for a minute that they're twins and I think that's because Franc really, really meticulously planned that.

How was it working with Franc. Reyes again for a second go around?

It was great. It's always great to work with someone a second and third time. It's like a team. If you're a gelled team you give a better game than when you're working with strangers because you have a shorthand. You know each other's strengths and you know each other's weaknesses and you feel more comfortable asking for things and demanding things. You can be more honest.

If M. Night asks you to do another film would you?

Oh, I'm down with a discount. Hopefully it's 'Avatar' because I love that cartoon.

I know you do a lot of indie films.

I love indie films.

How has the web helped out indie filmmakers today?

I don’t know. I really don't know how that works. I don't know if it does. I've heard of some little films. If you can create the right sort of buzz then it can be like free marketing, but I think the future is going to be incredible if the indie film business goes the way of the music business. You could cut out the middleman and go right from actor to finding your web distribution and then boom it's like a democratic type of filmmaking instead of having to go through studios. That's the way that the music business went. Right from the music makers to the distributors and skipped the sort of studio, the record labels.

'Righteous Kill'. What was it like working with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro again?

Yeah. It was great.

The trailer looks great.

Yeah, the trailer looks hot. It was the first time that Pacino and De Niro were working together on camera because in 'Heat' –

They only had that one scene.

But they weren't in it together. It was shot separately and then it was edited together to make it look like they were in the same scene, but in this one they're buddies and they talk. They're no manufacturing that. I mean, it's great. It's like working with the pros. You're there. Even if I had no lines it'd be great to just be hanging out. It's like a second time around though and you feel lucky, like, 'Hey, I made it to the boys club.'

What about 'Humbolt Park'?

I mean, I'd rather talk about 'Where God Left His Shoes' because that’s my favorite film. I love that film. That there is the best work I've done.

And then what about 'Where God Left His Shoes'?

'Where God Left His Shoes' is a true story written by the director/writer Sal Stabile about his dad and him. When he was young his dad lost everything and they were homeless and bankrupt and had to live for six months without anything and make ends meet and still be a family. It's a beautiful and personal story.

When does that come out?

In November.

I've seen the trailer for 'Ice Age 3'. Did that one set the bar higher than the previous two?

Well, we're going back a little bit to what we had in the first one which was letting the characters breathe a little bit more and still getting all the great humor in there. It's just letting the characters breathe a little bit more. Also, they found a great new world. That was the brilliant thing. They found a whole new world within this.

Dinosaurs.

Yeah, that's really the great thing. I mean, because without that what are you going to have because you already did the meltdown. You already did the ice age. You had to find a whole new way of shaking up the ice age and they did.

What about doing a 'Cantinflas' film?

I don't know where it's at now, where it's at, at this point.

I know your name always comes up about that.

I know. A friend of mine wrote a draft of it – I can't remember what studio it was for. It was pretty good. I talked to him about it a little bit.

What about standup comedy?

Not for a while. I've got one, but I want it to be a masterpiece. I'm going to hold onto it.

via LatinoReview.com