John Leguizamo On the Current State of Hollywood

By N. Jamiyla Chisholm Sep 16, 2019

John Leguizamo, who earned his fourth Emmy Award nomination for his performance in the Netflix-docuseries “When They See Us,” knows exactly what he will say if he wins on September 22. “Obviously I want to say that I’m an immigrant and that I bring great positivity and great things to this country, and all immigrants do and always have,” he told The Associated Press in an interview published Friday (September 13).

The actor, who immigrated from Colombia to the United States at age four, was in Los Angeles for a six-week run of his one-man show “Latin History for Morons.” In the interview, he spoke about another of his one-man shows, “John Leguizamo: Freak.” “The only reason I talked about myself wasn’t because I think my life is so incredible, but because there was such a dearth of Latin stories and portrayals of positive Latin stories that I just felt like, ‘I need to tell my story so that other Latin people, Latin kids, can feel connected and see a mirror of themselves and feel propelled to succeed somehow,’” Leguizamo said.

Leguizamo also said that Hollywood still isn’t doing enough to fully represent the Latinx community. “It needs to start accepting our stories, because I’ve been pitching Latinx stories for 20 years,” he said.  

Read the interview here.