Actor, author and jack-of-all-trades performer John Leguizamo is back with his latest in a long line of one-man shows.
“Klass Klown,” which runs through June 30 at Suzanne Roberts Theatre, finds the actor taking the audience on a trip through his long and colorful career. And what a roller-coaster ride that has been.
Leguizamo has come about as close to doing it all as any actor can get in his more-than 20 years in the business. He’s appeared in blockbusters (“Ice Age,” “Romeo + Juliet,” “Moulin Rouge!”), gangster flicks (“Carlito’s Way”), horror films (“The Happening,” “Land of the Dead”), campy comedies (“To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,” “The Pest”), popcorn action movies (“Spawn,” “Collateral Damage”), and just about every other genre under the sun.
In “Klass Klown,” Leguizamo opens up about his triumphs, mistakes and the misadventures he’s experienced in his personal and professional life, from the New York theater scene of the mid-’80s, where he started out, to where he is today.
Leguizamo talked to PGN about his career and the creative process that goes into his outrageously funny solo show.
PGN: In one of your books, you describe yourself as “a horrible example of how to have a successful career.” What would you have changed? JL: At this point, I wouldn’t change anything because it got me to write this show that I’m doing right now. If I had gotten it all right, I wouldn’t have written this show. There were so many things that I shouldn’t have turned down, things I should have turned down and people I should have fired a long time ago.
PGN: Given you’ve worked in television, movies and theater projects across many genres, don’t you think that you are the envy of about 99 percent of your peers? JL: I know. Dude, I’m still grateful. I know the percentage of SAG members that actually work. What is it, like 6 percent or something like that? It’s a low number. In that aspect, I’m grateful. Everybody is jealous of somebody.
PGN: Who are your influences and inspirations as a performer? JL: I have my heroes and it’s Richard Pryor, because he talked the rawest about himself. He started that kind of thing. And then I would say Eric Bogosian brought the sex and the anger into it. Whoopi Goldberg brought in the poetry and the ghetto. And Lily Tomlin was the first to actually make it more of a play. And I just took a little bit of everybody and made my own hybrid version of that.
PGN: How much of what you do as a performer pulls from your experiences and background in theater? JL: Most of it. I started acting in Lee Strasberg’s class and with Herbert Berghof. All we did was plays. That’s how you learn to act, in plays. Even my writing was influenced by reading plays, especially Eugene O’Neill. He’s one of my big influences. “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” was always an extremely self-revelatory piece. It’s one of those exposés on yourself. That’s always been the high bar that I wanted to reach. I did improv live in New York at the First Amendment Theater. And that stayed with me pretty much into my film career. I always try to improv, rewrite and think like a playwright. What is the character arc? Where is it going? What are the scenes?
PGN: Does any of the show fall back on your comedy-club roots? JL: The show is a strange hybrid. It’s a play. It’s a drama. It’s stand-up comedy. It’s performance art. This time, I’m doing something a little different in my show. It’s got more of a play in it. If I do say so myself, it’s getting very masterful.
PGN: With the show being semi-autobiographical, do you ever get apprehensive about putting so much of your business out there? JL: Every fucking day. Every single time. And my wife is coming to see it in Philadelphia. So are some friends. I’m trying not to find out when they’re coming so I can just be. I’m trying to keep my eyes on the road and not look around and do what I have to do as an artist and not worry about the consequences. I’m pretty foolish but I can’t help myself.
PGN: How long do you have to workshop a show like this before it’s ready to go? JL: Time equals quality. The real nature of art is time equals quality. The longer I do it, the better it gets. I started writing this show eight years ago and I’ve been doing it on and off three or four. I did it like an improv at colleges. I’d drink a lot and I’d go on stage with my index cards. Then I’d have to run home and try to write before I fell asleep because I was drunk. That’s how I started, and then it started developing into more-solid pieces. Last year, I started really performing it seriously.
PGN: Do you prefer doing a show like “Klass Klown” over movies or television? JL: This is the more-satisfying thing as an artist, actor and performer. Nothing has ever come close to capturing who I really am and what I can do but the stage and what I’ve done.
PGN: Which role do you think you’ll be more remembered for: Chi-Chi Rodriguez or Sid the Sloth? JL: Oh, wow! There’s also “Carlito’s Way” and “Spawn,” and then my stage shows. I can tell who the people are in the audience by what they hoot and holler at. That’s how I can tell who’s in my house. I can tell there are young people because they hoot and holler at “The Pest” and “Super Mario Bros.” And I can tell there are more hoodie types when they holler at “Carlito’s Way.” I can tell where the women and the gay people are because they holler at “To Wong Foo.” And that’s how it goes.
PGN: Which of your films are you the most proud of? JL: I’ve got to say “Where God Left His Shoes” is some of my best work and closest to who I am, and that’s why I’m really proud of it. It wasn’t seen by many people but it was one of the finalists at Tribeca Film Festival. PGN: Are there any of your films that you’d like to burn every copy of? JL: Oh yeah. I would say “A Pyromaniac’s Love Story,” “Street Hunter,” “Lies and Alibis” and “Collateral Damage.”
PGN: When you were doing these films, did you know that they were going to be bad going in, or was it not apparent until after they were done? JL: I was naïve back then. I always thought that because I do what I do and I write, I can fix anything. I had a naïve young-punk mentality. I knew they weren’t good but I thought I could fix them somehow. I thought I could rewrite my part and help them rewrite the rest. I couldn’t.
PGN: Is that why you decided to become a producer? JL: I thought if I took hold of my career through producing, it could help a lot. And it has helped a lot. I’ve learned so much about the business that I never would have learned otherwise by just being an employee. It might have taken me to the next level.
PGN: Having worked with many, many top Hollywood stars, is there anyone you haven’t worked with who’s on your wish list? JL: I would love to work with Meryl Streep, Glen Close … I really dig Mark Ruffalo. Jeremy Renner is pretty great. I think there’s some great talent out there that I’d like to work with.
PGN: Do you think actors and actresses today have more control over their careers than they did when you started out? JL: Nope. The potential for performers to have more control over their careers is at a cusp right now. It’s a real possibility with technology and the Internet. It’s about to happen, but it has not happened. Musicians have tried more than actors because it’s much more expensive for an actor to put a film together than it is anything else in the world, more than an album, theater or anything else. The business is changing for the worse. The only movies they want to make are those dumb sequels or something that was a TV show. It’s the worst it’s ever been. The independent market dies because the investment banks and the money dried up in America.
PGN: Is there anything you haven’t done in your career that you would like to do? JL: I want to write and be in a movie like I do in my plays. That’s in reach.
Philadelphia Theatre Company presents “Klass Klown” through June 30 at Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St. For more information or tickets, visit www.leguizamo.ning.com or call (215) 985-0420.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].