NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - American Dreaming with José Díaz-Balart: John Leguizamo

Episode Date: December 6, 2020

From Colombia to New York City, actor and comedian John Leguizamo opens up about the experiences that have shaped his American Dream through his constant push to be seen in a Hollywood world that lacks Latino representation. How does someone reach success in both film and theater as a Latino immigrant without losing their roots in an effort to belong? Leguizamo tells José Díaz-Balart.

What is the American dream for you? Well, I mean, first of all, America is the greatest human experiment ever created in the history of mankind. And that's what keeps us going, the ideal, that ideal. Have you achieved your American dream? Oh, I feel I have. I feel I have. I mean, I still have a lot more.

My dream is really big. I'm doing great. How you doing, John? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Jose? Great, man. It's great to see you. You know, actor, comedian, teacher. You're a multifaceted man with a lot of dreams and dreams that have come true. You come from Colombia. You came here when you were four. Right, right. I immigrated to the U.S. when I was four years old. I moved to Jackson Heights, Queens, and we started off all living in one room. And then my parents, you know, worked their culitos off and, you know, three or four jobs each until we were able to move the next year into a house that had at least a room for them. Because, you know, we had a Murphy bed and that was our living room, kitchen, bathroom. Everything was right there.

Then next year, my parents had a private room, but still no brothers and sisters. And then, you know, every year we improved. Every year we improved, you know, until eventually my brother and I had our own room. And then, you know, my parents rented out every other room in the house. So I grew up with tenants my whole life,

sharing a bathroom and sharing a floor with tenants because that's the way they could pay for things. But when you got to that neighborhood in Queens, you guys were the first Latinos there. Oh, yeah. It was the beginning of white flight. And then all the Latinos moved in, which was beautiful. But I grew up with the whole diaspora of Latin,

Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Ecuadorians, Chileans, Argentines. And it was great, man. I loved them all. And we had a great time and I felt a great sense of community. And John, you didn't see yourself reflected anywhere else. I mean, we just weren't visible and kind of still not visible in a lot of ways. But talk to me about when you were growing up, who you would see as people like you. Right. What is crazy? I mean, the thing is, it's not like we just got here, man. We've been here for 500 years. I mean, we also are the only ethnic group to have fought in every single war America has ever had. The most decorated minority in each and every single one of those wars. That's

a huge contribution. But you don't see that in any textbook that you're reading, in any movie that you're watching, in any newspaper that you're reading. So how do you give yourself a sense of self-worth? I didn't even see myself in comic books. You know, I didn't see myself as a superhero or as a goofy Archie. I didn't see myself anywhere. I didn't see myself in my history textbooks. I didn't see myself as a hero in a television show. So how does a child create their self-esteem and know that they matter? I mean, the messaging becomes the opposite because you don't see yourself, that you don't matter, that you don't count, that you don't have possibilities. And it reinforces in others a way of saying that

we didn't contribute, that we didn't participate in the Great American Experiment, but we did. And you get to a point where you're actually successful enough and even more successful because of, for example, Latino history for morons. How do you portray the reality on Broadway? It wasn't easy. I mean, it took me years to figure out the right formula because, you know, when I first started out, I had a lot of history because I was so excited by the history, man. It just, it gave me a sense of feeling more than instead of less than, you know, made me feel like a, like, like, like a, like Latin being Latin was a superpower.

Cause we're the only ethnic group that was almost genocided. The only ethnic group that had their culture destroyed, their language destroyed, their, their, their religion destroyed. And yet we're still here and contributing big time. And when I found that information, my first shows were all information because I'm a ghetto nerd. And people were like, I thought you were going to be funny.

I thought this was going to be a show about your family. I thought this was going to be real good. And I was like, yo, I thought we like information. These are great facts about our people. So I had to make it more entertaining and more funny. And then I found the right balance. So how is it that when you have these frustrations and you have this

information and you have this desire, burning desire to, to let people know about this and say, listen, this is a reality. We are part of the fabric of American society. And yet people don't even see the tela. They don't see the fabric at all. And sometimes I think like, I'm living in two worlds. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm living in a cultural apartheid because New York City is Latinx people are equal to whites in population,

35% to 35%. And yet we're less than 1 percent of the stories and staff at the new york times at the new york post at the new yorker at the new york magazine i mean that's cultural apartheid how is that possible that's in new york brother that's in new york la is 50 percent latino and less than three percent of the faces in hollywood are latin and less than 3% of the faces in Hollywood are Latin. And less than 2% are behind the camera. And less than 1% are studio execs and telling our stories. That's cultural apartheid. And, you know, don't tell me because we don't try hard enough or because we don't got talent. Nobody tries harder than Latin people with less access in this country.

So let me ask you, John. So you've got kids. You've got dreams. You've got aspirations. How can we change? How can we change when, and I've just got this, I mean, listen to this. 70%, and this is according to Asif, right? 70% or nearly 350 companies of the Fortune 500 did not have a single Hispanic on their board. 70% do not have one. Only 4% of Fortune 500 companies have two Hispanics

on their board. That's business. If we're contributing $2.3 trillion to the U.S. economy every year, and if you were our own country, it would be the eighth largest economy in the world or the third largest state in America, then I want that percentage of that money to be our executives, to be the gatekeepers, to be the people making those decisions. That's what I want. We're almost 20% of the population, including my undocumented brothers and sisters. And so I want 20% representation everywhere, man. You know, with 25% of the US box office, I want 25% of the roles and stories being told in Hollywood, network, streamers, Netflix, Amazon. That's what I want. That's what's fair. John, you start out in a world where you don't see yourself reflected, and then you actually

go through the channel of comedy. How were you able to navigate that? Well, because I was always really funny at home. And people, my dad, my mom, my brother always tell me, do that character, do that voice. And at parties, people go, John, put on that coat and do all those characters and personalities.

And I had the whole party laughing and cracking up. And I always had my friends on the street laughing. So I knew I had something. You know what I mean? I knew I had some kind of skill set. I just didn't know how to monetize it. And then my math teacher, Mr. Sufa, said to me, you know, if they can make pender salad out of moldy bread,

they can make something out of you. And I was like, you know, maybe he's got something there. So I started going to acting classes. And I was like, you know, maybe he's got something there. So I started going to acting classes and I was always the only Latin guy, but I had a lot of great mentors who appreciated me and knew that I was after something and they nurtured me, took care of me. And then, you know, I started going to the comedy clubs because that's where the places were. And, you know, I wait in line at the open mic nights at midnight at Catch a Rising Star, you know, and you pick a number and they give you a raffle.

And if you're lucky, you go up and you do five minutes. And you build, you know, you build a tough skid and you build your routine. How do you not give up? Well, because, you know, I always was boosted by, you know, my friends and family because I was always making them laugh. So that always felt like I got something. I just, maybe I'm not doing it right. Maybe I'm not in the right place. And eventually I found myself in performance art,

which was downtown, the LES, Lower East Side in New York City, where people let me do my 20-minute stories. And they would crack up. I don't know what made me so tough to like not care. People rejected me. I didn't really, I didn't really give a darn. You know, I was like, I'm going to keep doing my thing because I'm the only one who's boosting

me. And if people reject me, that's their problem. I'm just going to keep doing my thing until I'm good enough to, you know, get where I need to go. And then when you do get to where you need to go and you start seeing success, then you really kind of almost, in a very strong, obvious way, just say, I want to be more who I am.

What I matter about. I just realized, you know, that Hollywood was always going to be Hollywood for me, you know, people who look like me. So I knew that, you know, because like was always going to be Hollywood for me, you know, people who look like me. So I knew that, you know, because like, early on in college, you know, I was in a class with a lot of big actors. And they were going to like five auditions a day. And I was going to one every five months. So I relied on myself, I started writing my own stuff to, to see myself to show how we Latin people were how we, you know, I did Mambo Mouth and then boom,

when that got on HBO, Latin people found me. And then when they found me and got into my theater and they started stomping and laughing and crying and, and call and response, you know, we had, we had this chemistry. So I now had this audience that fed me and gave me the courage to keep going and to do more. And so, you know, I do the next, then I do my next show, even more land people show up paying now, you know, a hundred dollars a seat to come and see me and, and stomping and yelling and hooting, hollering. And, you know, that just fed me. It was like fuel to a fire. And,

and so I knew they were hungry to see themselves represented. And I was dying to create the content for them to see themselves. You just for the first time are directing a movie. You're also acting in it, Critical Thinking. It just so happens to be a movie about Latinos for the general public. Well, I'm trying to even the score, you know, of having us be a little bit more than 1% of the stories being told by the media and the studios and networks. I found this beautiful story

about five Latin and black teenagers in one of the toughest cities in neighborhoods in Miami called Overtown, Liberty City back in the day, that in 1998 became United States National Chess Champions. And they did it for five years in a row.

It was incredible. They had no supplies. Their public schools were defunded. And yet this one teacher and these five kids became regional champs all over Florida, then Florida State champs, and then to the biggest coveted prize of national chess champions. And you decided to bring that to life. And it wasn't easy, bro.

It was two decades in the making. Nobody believed in the movie, even though it was an incredible true story. And even when I was pitching it to raise the money recently, a few years ago, you know, the studios would, with their Hollywood wisdom, you know, Latin people don't want to see Latin people. I was like, what? Latin people don't want to see feel good movies. I'm like, what? I mean, it was crazy, man. It was like all this sort of like, they love the way it was written. They love the story, but they're not going to do

it. Because nobody that looked like me was, had the power, wasn't the executive, wasn't the gatekeeper. So I had to raise the money independently. Talk to me about your American dream. What is the American dream for you? Well, I mean, first of all, America is the greatest human experiment ever created in the history of mankind. And that's what keeps us going, the ideal, that ideal,

that we can all, we are all born equal. We all have a right to happiness. So that's what still fuels me, is that hopefully we can protect this democracy and this constitution, which is only a paper. It's not a natural law. It's a law that we all agree to voluntarily follow. Once one of us tears it up and stops believing in it, all of a sudden it disappears. America is still the great place where you can come from nothing and be somebody.

It's not easy. And it doesn't happen for everyone. There's lots of people that look like me who had dreams and aspirations and talent and genius and gifted and didn't make it. What I say to my kids is, you know, follow your dreams. Just find a dream, find a passion and don't let nobody tell you no. You know, let rejection fuel you.

You know, love the thing you're doing, not where you're going to. You know, because I never did this to be famous or to have money or to have popularity. I did it only because I love the craft of it. I was such a theater nerd. Because I never did this to be famous or to have money or to have popularity. I did it only because I loved the craft of it. I was such a theater nerd. I loved plays and I loved the word, the spoken word, and I loved the power of the spoken word. And that's what always motivated me.

So that's why I try to pass it to my kids. Have you achieved your American dream? Oh, I feel I have. I feel I have. I mean, I still have a lot more. My dream is really big. So there's still a lot more pieces of that dream that I want to accomplish. You know, I want to see a Latin studio.

I want to see hundreds of Latin directors and Latin writers and Latin actors and us at the Oscars constantly every year and at the Emmys. That's all part of my dream. John, we could and we must continue this conversation, but I've got to tell you, I can't thank you enough for the privilege of your time. Well, thank you, man. It's so great to talk to you.