Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends

295 Pages·2006·4.33 MB·English

by  John Leguizamo

,
s
O
H
,
S
P
M ,
I S
P
A
T
A
H
A
Y
A
L
P
and all the rest of
d s
n
d f r i e
o
o
w
o l l y
h
m y
my life
J
O
H
N LE
G
UIZ
A
M
O
T
o all the actors, directors, writers, and
producers, or anybody that was a part of trying to
make some piece of art or some commercial crap
disguised as something to say: here’s to you. I respect
you all because it’s never easy . . . even when it’s
supposed to be, it’s not.
Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE vii
CHAPTER 1
For me, there’s always been a fine line between acting… 1
CHAPTER 2
I got my first training as a comedian at home… 8
CHAPTER 3
As I was bouncing around between all those different parts… 24
CHAPTER 4
When I got into NYU I started working to pay… 35
CHAPTER 5
My first step into movie acting was a baby step:… 49
CHAPTER 6
Casualties of War was my first big “Hollywood movie,” but… 64
CHAPTER 7
I started writing Mambo Mouth the day Cathy and I… 75
CHAPTER 8
Don’t hold Super Mario Brothers against me. I mean, when… 90
CHAPTER 9
I started writing Spic-O-Rama while I was still doing Mambo… 102
CHAPTER 10
I got to make another movie with Brian De Palma,… 123
CHAPTER 11
I was back in a miniskirt and heels again for… 132
CHAPTER 12
Meanwhile, Evelyn and I were still fighting
and fucking, fighting… 148
CHAPTER 13
I auditioned for Baz Luhrmann for four hours to get… 156
CHAPTER 14
So Evelyn and I got divorced, and my movie bombed. 172
CHAPTER 15
After Spawn I was sick of movies. I started to… 185
CHAPTER 16
After Freak I did Summer of Sam, and it was… 203
CHAPTER 17
When Teeny got pregnant, I prayed for a daughter. I… 211
CHAPTER 18
Oh man, me and my son. A typical Leguizamo father-son… 227
CHAPTER 19
But Empire . . . Empire brought me back. It saved my life… 234
CHAPTER 20
But I gotta eat. And so do my kids. And… 242
CHAPTER 21
Ice Age and Empire rocked the movie theaters. I felt… 245
CHAPTER 22
I don’t know, maybe all those hits I took made… 256
CHAPTER 23
One night in the midst of all the Undefeated and… 262
CHAPTER 24
Teeny says that marriage and fatherhood have
calmed me down. 272
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN LEGUIZAMO
CREDITS
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

author’s note
They say never write your autobiography till you’re about to die or too old
to work. Well, I never listened to good advice so why should I start now?
I think of this book less as an autobiography and more of a way of keep-
ing score with the people who have wronged me. No, that would be nega-
tive . . . it’s more of a personal inventory.
Oh, forget the half-lie. It’s what happened as best as I can tell it with-
out bitching or whining or gossiping, which is pretty hard for me to do.
I’ve taken out some good slander insurance and have gotten the name
of a killer lawyer (not killer like in cool, but as in cold-blooded hit man).
So I’m kind of prepared . . . but probably not for the emotional fallout.
That’s much harder to deal with.
I’ve had to change some names because some people I know are very
litigious and it’s just a good idea to . . . Otherwise they’ll feel like they
own you or you owe them. It’s just very messy. I should have written
a fiction piece, but as I didn’t, I’ve had to modify identifying features,
so instead of a flat nose, I’ve said an aquiline nose, including physical
descriptions and occupations of other individuals in order to preserve
their anonymity. In some cases, composite characters have been created
or timelines have been compressed in order to further preserve privacy
vviIiIiI JOAHUTNH LOERG’US INZAOMTEO
**
and maintain narrative flow. The goal in all cases was to protect people’s
privacy without damaging the integrity of my life story.
So why did I write this? Maybe because I’m a recovering Catholic and
I never really got the whole priest-confession thing right. Or maybe I’m
just masochistic—that’s just the artist in me, the one I try to empower
over the commercial whore who mostly runs my inner and regular life.