After forty years in film – John Leguizamo still likes it.

John Leguizamo at The Flower Shop, NYC. Grooming: George Kyriakos. Image: Eric Ogden.

Since starting out as a stand-up comedian in the 1980s, John Leguizamo has gone on to act in over one hundred films, alongside multiple appearances in television and theatre, earning accolades such as a Golden Globe nomination for To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar and Emmy and Tony awards for his one-man stage shows Freak and Latin History for Morons.

This month he can be seen in the title role of Bob Trevino Likes It, which is getting the same warm response from cinema audiences as it received at film festivals. The feature-length debut of writer-director Tracie Laymon, it was inspired by her own experience of accidentally friending a namesake of her father. Leguizamo’s character shares the same name as the father of Lily (played by Barbie Ferreira), and the film follows them as their brief online exchanges develop into the deeper familial bond that both Lily and the childless Bob crave. Great chemistry between its lead actors was therefore crucial. “Barbie Ferreira is just unbelievable – she really is Lily! She’s like this real kind, sweet, funny, vulnerable human being. Me and her met at Amaranth, my favourite restaurant in New York City, and we hit it off. We're still really close friends, and it's been almost two years now.”

From the outset, Laymon recognized the importance to the project of such real-life connections. “Tracie and I had to meet to see if we liked each other: you could have a great script but not really like the people you're working with, and that's always a disaster, especially with a movie of this tenderness. Tracie was very meticulous about who she brought on, and I think she was right. We had to be very considerate and respectful.” Once French Stewart had joined the cast as Lily’s biological father, with Rachel Bay Jones playing Bob’s wife, the actors assembled for their first readthrough. “And it hit me so hard: I didn't realize how funny it was, how touching it was, and what a powerful piece it really was until everybody was cast. At that reading, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm a part of something really, really special’ – which you always ask the universe for, but you don't always get.”

While Leguizamo was immediately drawn to the emotional truth of the script, the character of Bob was a further inducement. “I don't really get to play these types of roles that often. I'm always the eccentric or the wild card – which I love, don't get me wrong – but this was a little different. This was an average dad, a normal dude telling corny dad jokes and whatnot. I really was looking forward to that.” A father of two and vocal supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, Leguizamo was keen to portray a different kind of masculinity from his usual roles. “I do share a lot of character traits with Bob. I think I'm a caring, nurturing type of male – trying to be that new male, sensitive, vulnerable, which I really advocate for.”

“People are tired of these big boring rides; they want real feelings. They want real stories about real people. They want to feel something and be moved. I do”

— Leguizamo

There are some powerful moments in the film where Leguizamo conveys that vulnerability – in one standout scene, Bob weeps alone in his car following a visit to a dog shelter. “That was a really important moment for my character. Obviously, him and his wife have a lot of pain because of the loss, and he doesn’t really want to burden her, so he has a good cry by himself. I think we've all had some great cries by ourselves, where we can let go of all the trauma that we've built up over decades. I think it's a really good thing to purge yourself that way.” Leguizamo reveals how the scene was made even more poignant by the sudden appearance of a glow of fireflies during shooting. “That was not CGI, that was all real … and then Tracie was crying, because it was such a beautiful moment for her. I think when you see the movie, you realize that so much of the story is based on real moments. There's so much authenticity.”

Although Leguizamo has appeared in his fair share of blockbusters, this kind of independent feature is what truly enthuses him. “The indie film will always be the most important medium of the film industry because that's where the experimentation happens, that's where the innovation happens, that's where the risks are being taken. That's where the auteurs thrive because they're not being corralled by executives, they're not being given notes to death, they're not doing things by committee. They're being true artists.” He sees in the resurgence of indie film a rejection of the big-budget spectacles that have dominated cinema for the past decade. “People are tired of these big boring rides; they want real feelings. They want real stories about real people. They want to feel something and be moved. I do.”

Independent filmmaking also speaks to Leguizamo’s sense of himself as an outsider in Hollywood. “You can't really believe in the studio system; you can't be in love with it. I'm very anti-Hollywood in a lot of ways. It was never for me. I knew they weren't for me, they weren't for Latino people, so they were never on my side.” Fortunately, he did have some stalwart supporters early in his career, such as Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, who directed him in his first major role in Super Mario Bros, and Spike Lee, who cast him as the lead for Summer of Sam.

“That film holds a very, very special place for me. First of all, I thought it was so incredibly well written by Michael Imperioli. And secondly, Spike Lee – he's one of my heroes, a mentor, a brother, and he took a risk by making me the lead. They really didn't give Latinos leads in America as often as we deserve, because we're 20% of the population. Hollywood was Mexico 60 years before the founding fathers of Hollywood came there. The whole West Coast was Latino and yet we were segregated, lynched, redlined, experimented on, our women were sterilized – and yet they made us the villains of films. And here's Spike Lee undoing all of that by making me the lead of this film.” Twenty-five years later, he still rates it as one of his best acting experiences. “Mira Sorvino was incredible; Adrien [Brody] was at the top of his game. The freedom that Spike gave me, we improvised a ton. He let me get really dramatic and emotional – I felt safe.”

Lee would subsequently cast him in the 2008 war epic Miracle at St Anna and it’s notable how many directors who have worked with Leguizamo have been keen to direct him again. Upcoming thriller Tin Soldier (also featuring Leguizamo’s daughter, Allegra) reunited him with The Lincoln Lawyer and The Infiltrator director Brad Furman: “it's so fun to work with him because he shows me the business side of filmmaking that I'm not really savvy [about].” David Leitch, another of the “people that kept me going”, cast him as Aurelio in John Wick and subsequently gave him a leading role in the Christmas action-comedy Violent Night (“a really fun movie”). He describes Baz Luhrmann, who directed him in both Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!, as bringing “this incredible hilarity and theatricality that I had never seen in filmmakers. He's so collaborative and wonderfully nurturing as a director.”

A key figure in Leguizamo’s career was Brian De Palma. “Brian De Palma in Carlito’s Way gave me my way into films: he taught me what my gift was, which was an impulsive, intuitive, improvisational madness that he allowed me in that.” De Palma then approached Leguizamo to play Luther Stickell in the Mission Impossible franchise, but he was under contract for a TV series and couldn’t take the part. “But I think Ving Rhames killed it, so I'm happy for him.”

Another director to recognize Leguizamo’s gift for improvisation was Jon Favreau, who cast him in 2014’s Chef. “My role was not written in the movie. He took me to lunch at Chateau Marmont, where all the big directors go, and he said, ‘I want you to improvise the whole role.’ So I didn't have lines! It just said, ‘Martin is here’; ‘Martin hangs out here’; ‘Martin cooks’. I had to make up the entire role. It was an incredible challenge because everybody else had dialogue written, but I didn't.” Filming was a memorable experience, with Leguizamo taking his son on location to Miami, Austin and New Orleans, where they had “the best food in the world. I think that's when my son became a foodie.”

As with Bob Trevino Likes It, his motivation for doing Chef was sheer love of the script and of those involved: “Jon Favreau, the kid playing his son [Emjay Anthony] and Roy [Choi], the chef consultant. That was really such a beautiful feel-good movie.” Leguizamo explains that Favreau wrote Chef as a reaction to his disappointment over a previous film. “Jon confided in me that he was heartbroken: he had put his heart and soul into it, and he didn't get the box office that he expected or the reviews. The food truck symbolized independent filmmaking, the restaurant represented the studios, the food critic represented the film critics, and the owner of the restaurant represented the studio execs. I thought it was such a great metaphor for being independent and following your dreams, instead of trying to please The Man.”

In 2022, Leguizamo returned to the restaurant world, albeit in a rather darker form, with The Menu. An ensemble drama whose action takes place over a single night in the same location, it was shot more like a stage play with the cast on set at all times. “You could be on camera – your elbow could be, or the back of your head – so we all had to be on camera. The camera moves around a lot but we're all in the same space. You could turn it into a play very easily.” The film won critical acclaim for both the cast and the director, Mark Mylod, whom Leguizamo describes as “incredible”. “We had so much fun, we improvised so much – some of it made it, some of it didn’t. They had to trim me down a little bit, from what I heard – the rumour’s that they were afraid I would steal the show! (Which I love.)”

Having been directed by so many distinguished directors, Leguizamo is in a strong position to identify the qualities they share. “The thing that they all have in common is great technical savvy, great storytelling capabilities and a great way of dealing with actors; respect for actors and a respect for the process.” His next job will see him working with another top-tier contemporary director, Christopher Nolan, on the forthcoming epic Odyssey. Soon to join the all-star cast in locations across the Mediterranean, Leguizamo is having his hair dyed in preparation for his role. “My hair is almost white because I have to be an old man. I mean, I am an old man, but they want me to be older!” Although Odyssey’s reported budget of $250 million demonstrates studio confidence in Nolan’s box office power, Leguizamo believes that he still retains an auteur’s sensibility. “He gets that control that makes it artful, that keeps it intelligent, that doesn't dumb it down for the crowds. Because he's achieved a certain amount of success, he's allowed to do what he wants. He reminds me of all the great indie filmmakers.”

Leguizamo attributes his own continuing success to the breadth and depth of his activities beyond the confines of the Hollywood machine. Many of his professional endeavours double as Latinx advocacy work, such as Leguizamo Does America, a travel show foregrounding the contribution of Latino communities, and the new documentary series by his media company NGL Collective, American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos. His multiple parallel careers – as stage actor, comedian, TV presenter, voice actor, producer and author – are the key to his longevity, he says. “I think you’ve got to do a lot of things to stay active and alive. You’ve got to stay excited and do things outside of the system.”

Bob Trevino Likes It is in cinemas now.

Author: Rachel Goodyear