John Alberto Leguizamo Peláez (, LEG-wih-ZAH-moh; Colombian Spanish: [leɣiˈsamo]; born July 22, 1960 or 1964) is a Colombian and American comedian, actor and filmmaker. He has received various accolades, including a Special Tony Award in 2018 for his body of theatre work and for bringing diverse stories to Broadway theatre.
Leguizamo began his career as a stand-up comedian in New York City. He portrayed Luigi Mario in Super Mario Bros. (1993) before earning a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). He has acted in films such as Carlito's Way (1993), Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Pest (1997), Spawn (1997), Summer of Sam (1999), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Land of the Dead (2005), Ride Along (2014), Chef (2014), John Wick (2014), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), The Menu (2022), Bob Trevino Likes It (2024), and The Odyssey (2026). He also voiced Sid the Sloth in the Ice Age franchise (2002–present) and Bruno Madrigal in Encanto (2021).
Leguizamo is also known for his television roles including his HBO special Freak (1998), a filmed version of his eponymous Broadway show, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. This was a historic win, making Leguizamo the first ever Latino to win this award. He was further Emmy-nominated for his roles in the Paramount miniseries Waco (2018) and the Netflix miniseries When They See Us (2019). He has also acted in ER (2005–2006) and Bloodline (2016–2017). He hosted the MSNBC series Leguizamo Does America (2023) and PBS series American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos (2024).
For Broadway productions he has performed and written, he received four Tony Award nominations, two for Freak (1998), and one each for Sexaholix (2002) and Latin History for Morons (2018).
Early life and education
Leguizamo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, the son of Luz Marina Peláez and Alberto Rudolfo Leguizamo. His father was once an aspiring film director and studied at Cinecittà in Rome, Italy, but eventually dropped out due to lack of finances.
Leguizamo has Indigenous Colombian (Muisca), European (especially Iberian), and some African ancestry. His paternal grandfather was a wealthy Colombian landowner, and his great-great-grandfather Higinio Cualla was Mayor of Bogotá for sixteen years in the late 1800s and is considered an important modernizer of the city. Before this discovery, Leguizamo had claimed that he was Puerto Rican on his father's side, which was one of the reasons he was selected as the Puerto Rican Day Parade Global Ambassador of the Arts, and marched in the parade on June 12, 2011. He also claimed partial Lebanese and Italian ancestry before testing his DNA. It was determined that Leguizamo's maternal lineage includes the 16th-century Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, as well as Jerónimo Betuma, a 17th-century indigenous Colombian of noble birth.
When Leguizamo was 3 or 4 years old, his family emigrated to New York City, where they lived in various neighborhoods in Queens, including Jackson Heights. He later credited growing up as one of the first Latino children in the neighborhood as formative in his acting ability: "It was tough. There were lots of fights. I would walk through a park and be attacked, and I had to defend myself all the time. But this helped me to become funny so that I wouldn't get hit." His parents divorced when he was 13, and he lived with his mother while growing up. Leguizamo and his family constantly moved apartments in Queens, attending multiple elementary schools. Leguizamo was arrested twice as a teenager, once for jumping a turnstile at a New York City Subway station and another time for truancy. His family later sent him to Colombia for a year where he stayed with his relatives.
Leguizamo attended Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145) and later Murry Bergtraum High School. As a student at Murry Bergtraum, he wrote comedy material and tested it on his classmates. He was voted "Most Talkative" by his classmates. After graduating from high school, he began his theater career as an undergraduate at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, from which he eventually dropped out in favor of a career in stand-up comedy. Post-NYU, Leguizamo enrolled at LIU Post and at HB Studio, where he took theater classes.
Early career
Leguizamo started as a stand-up comic doing the New York nightclub circuit in 1984, and in 1988, he performed at The Public Theater in two shows, including as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream in which he appeared with Fisher Stevens. He made his television debut in 1986 with a small part in Miami Vice. His other early roles include a friend of Madonna's boyfriend in her "Borderline" video (1984) and Private First Class Dìaz in Casualties of War (1989). In the early 1990s, he played a terrorist in Die Hard 2 (1990), Johnny in Hangin' with the Homeboys, and a robber in Regarding Henry (both 1991). In 1991, Leguizamo also wrote and performed in the Off-Broadway production Mambo Mouth, where he played seven different characters. Mambo Mouth won an Obie Award and an Outer Critics Award. He was listed as one of 12 "Promising New Actors of 1991" in "John Willis' Screen Worlds Vol. 43".
In 1992, Leguizamo starred in Whispers in the Dark as John Castillo. In 1993, he portrayed Luigi Mario in the film Super Mario Bros., based on the Mario video game franchise. Despite being a critical and financial failure, the film was considered to be his breakthrough role, allowing him to appear in more successful comedic roles in the following years. That same year, he had a prominent role in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way as Carlito Brigante's nemesis, "Benny Blanco from the Bronx," which also boosted his career in serious roles, and wrote and performed in the one-man show Spic-O-Rama, where he made fun of the stereotyping of Latinos in the United States. The production won a Drama Desk Award and four Cable ACE Awards. Both Mambo Mouth and Spic-O-Rama were later filmed for presentation on HBO.
In 1995, Leguizamo created, produced, wrote, and starred in the 1995 Latino-oriented variety show House of Buggin' on Fox Television. Some audiences saw this as the Latino version of In Living Color. The show showcased Leguizamo's well-known ability to assume a wide variety of colorful, energetic characters, but due to poor ratings, the show ran less than one season. Leguizamo also starred in Romeo + Juliet (1996) as Tybalt Capulet, as Violator in Spawn, Cholo in Land of the Dead, and Pestario 'Pest' Vargas in The Pest, the latter being one of his few roles as a lead actor in a major film. In 1995, he co-starred as drag queen Chi-Chi Rodriguez in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and he appeared in the 1996 action film Executive Decision as Captain Rat. In 1998, he debuted on Broadway in the production of Freak, a semi-autobiographical one-person play that was filmed for HBO and released on October 10, 1998, with Spike Lee sitting in as director. The show won him the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. In 1999, Leguizamo appeared in a lead role as Vinny in Summer of Sam, which was written and directed by Lee.
2000–2009
In 2000, Leguizamo portrayed both Genies in Arabian Nights, a TV mini-series adaptation of the epic One Thousand and One Nights. In 2001, RCA/BMG Records released John Leguizamo LIVE, a CD compilation of Leguizamo's stage routines. Among the bits is a primer Leguizamo gives on the history and culture of Latinos in America, which includes the dubious tale of the mating of an Inca princess with a Spanish conquistador, thus creating the original dysfunctional Latin family, each member of which is voiced by Leguizamo. The CD also includes…