John Leguizamo

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Antonio Banderas, Philadelphia, 1993. When Leguizamo preferred the less  controversial Super Mario  Brothers (!), director Jonathan Demme called upon  the Spanish star to be  the lover of  Tom Hanks’ lawyer suing over losing his job because he has AIDS.

  2. Benjamin Bratt, Law & Order, TV, 1995-2009.  When Chris Noth pulledf his badge after 11 episodes as Detetuive Mike Logan, Leguizamo and Danny Trejo  were  seen for Jerry Orbach’s new partner, Detective Reynaldo Curtis.  When Bratt left in 2009, Orbach’s Detective Lennie Brisco was still on the beat, eventually completing 274 cases during 1991-2004. 

  3. Cheech Marin, Tin Cup, 1995.   Forgetting Caddyshack – please! – not many films are made about golf. Clint Eastwood once tried to tee one off with Connery and Nicholson, no less. And I remember Glenn Ford as the great Ben Hogan in Follow The Sun, 1950. Leguizamo passed and Kevin Costner’s caddy went to Cheech (minus Chong).
  4. Jeffrey Wright, Shaft, 1999.    All set to be Peoples Hernandez, when  he had to go, hunch down as Toulouse-Lautrec  in Moulin Rouge in  Australia for his Romeo + Juliet director Baz Luhrmann.
  5. Jordi Molla, Blow, 2001.     In early talks to play the best friend of Johnny Depp’s George Jung, America’s cocaine-meister of the 70s and 80s.
  6. Jacek Koman, Moulin Rouge! 2001.      Baz Lurhman first signed John  for The Narcoleptic Argentinean before realising his 1996 Tybalt was perfect for the more physically demanding role of Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa.
  7. Vincent Laresca, Empire, 2001.     Dancer-choreographer-songwriter turned auteur  Franc  Reeves asked John  to be Jimmy.  He preferred to be Victor. And got his way – by persuading Isabella Rossellini, Peter Sarsgaard,  etc, to  join the cast. 
  8. Jim Cummings, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, 2002.  For its last  hand-drawn 2-D toon, DreamWorks’played safe about deciding who should voice Luca – Leguizamo or the Disney veteran?  Cummings had voiced such favourites  as  Geppetto, Long John Silver, Rasputin, Santa Claus and both Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and is often relied upon for a remarkable range of “Additional Voices”!
  9. Scott Adsit, Big Hero 6, 2014.  “We didn’t set out to be superheroes. But sometimes life doesn’t go the way you planned.”  Jason Bateman, Josh Gad, Dennis Leary, John Leguizamo, Danny McBride, Ray Romano and Jason Sudeikis were seen (and heard!) for voicing Baymax in Disney’s first Marvel subject – winning the best animation Oscar. It unfurls in 2023 (we all know that computer battery number, right?) in San Fransokyo (‘Frisco rebuilt by the Japanese after an earthquake) and deals with a super-troupe behind the titular collective name… that nobody ever uses.  “I wanted a robot that we had never seen before,” ordered co-director Don Hall  “Something wholly original.”  He sure got it.  Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers said the film “would be a ton less fun without this irresistible blob of roly-poly, robot charisma.”
  10. James Ransone, It Chapter Two, 2018.  Steve Buscemi, Bill Hader, John Leguizamo up  for the adult Eddie Kaspbrak – in the 262nd of Stephen King’s staggering 313 screen credits… and his second biggest hit! The first?  It, 2016, of course.  (King Kameo: Pawnbroker).

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  10