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Across over 30 years of his career, John Leguizamo has been part of a lot of hit movies! From playing Sid in the Ice Age franchise and singing Encanto’s most viral song that has us wanting a Bruno spinoff, to starring in the first Super Mario Bros. movie, playing the creepy Clown in Spawn and appearing the classic musical Moulin Rouge!, the actor has a rather good batting average. But as Leguizamo recently explained, he has made “stupid” judgement calls in the past on movies that went on to become big hits, namely Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Happy Feet.
When John Leguizamo was asked about if there are roles from his past that he regrets turning down, one that came to mind immediately was Stanley Tucci’s role in The Devil Wears Prada. And no, that’s not all. He also told Business Insider that he could have played Vince Vaughn’s part in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, too. In his words:
Well, for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, it was because they were paying them $20 million and they were going to pay me scale. I felt dissed, and they probably weren’t dissing me, but I felt dissed. Sometimes when you’re a person of color, you’re so used to being dissed that you think you’re being dissed, and sometimes you’re not being dissed. So that’s what happens, and you have to go to a lot of therapy to fix that.
By “them,” we can fill in the blanks that the actor is talking about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who were the main stars of the action movie. At the time, John Leguizamo felt he was being “dissed” by the producers behind it for paying him to scale, but all these years later, he sees that it “probably” wasn’t the case. During the interview, Leguizamo also shared that he turned down the role of Ramón in George Miller’s Happy Feet, which would go to Robin Williams. Here’s why:
And Happy Feet, I had done Ice Age. I was going, ‘I don’t want to be doing all these ice movies.’ Such a stupid reason. But it seemed logical to me at the moment, and then I lost out on millions.
Just four years prior, Leguizamo had debuted his role of Sid the Sloth in the first Ice Age movie, a part he continues to “love” to this day. Since both of them were “ice” movies, he wanted to have some variety into his career, but these days he wishes he had said yes instead. When it comes to the roles that got away, he says he “had my reasons,” but they were “stupid.”
Leguizamo also nearly turned down one of his breakout roles, Carlito’s Way, because he felt playing a drug dealer was “denigrating” to his culture. However, once he was told that Benicio del Toro would get the role instead of him if he passed, he decided to stick it out.
Of course, when it comes to some of these decisions, John Leguizamo had no idea which roles would be hits and which would be flops. The actor has learned a lot throughout his decades in the business, and has always advocated for his community, once talking to CinemaBlend about why Hollywood needs more Latin heroes.
You can see John Leguizamo next in Tin Soldier alongside Jamie Foxx, Robert De Niro, Scott Eastwood and Rita Ora. The action thriller doesn’t have a set release yet, but it is expected to be among the 2024 movies.