John Leguizamo in "Ghetto Klown"
John Leguizamo is nothing if not brutally, unabashedly, unapologetically candid.
In his latest one-man show, Ghetto Klown, directed by Academy Award-winner Fisher Stevens and set to open for 15 performances (Sept. 30-Oct. 16), at the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre in Hollywood, the edgy funnyman, once again, pulls back the curtain on his life, offering up one true tale after another.
Bringing his story to the stage was no small undertaking. Preparing to bare his soul each night is a behemoth task. Leguizamo’s prep time is enough to wear out even the most seasoned of performers.
“It’s deep,” he says during a recent phone interview. “About three or four hours before the show, I go to the theater. I meditate. I go through emotional things. I go through the character. I do a dance warm-up, then a vocal warm-up. Then I’m ready.”
After the show, when he takes his bow, he’s left fulfilled, but breathless and exhausted.
John Leguizamo
“I’m like James Brown,” he says. “I want someone to throw a blanket on me. I can barely move. I just want to go home and sleep. I have nothing left. I’m so spent. I don’t want to talk. I just want to chill.” That’s John Leguizamo, a full-throttle entertainer who doesn’t know any other way to approach the stage.
It’s been 10 years since Leguizamo, 47, let an audience inside his private, chaotic, intimate world. The Emmy and Obie winner’s solo shows have all been personal. They’ve captured his love of life, his vulnerability and his insecurity while simultaneously showcasing his comedy.
Ghetto Klown continues his personal soap opera.
“It’s called Ghetto Klown because we’re from humble beginnings,” he explains. “I’m from a tough neighborhood. I was also a class clown. I was a crazy out-of-control delinquent. Now I’m an adult. I’m incredibly precise and very much a workaholic. How ironic. Now I’m making a living off of being a clown.”
Ghetto Klown, presented by WestBeth Entertainment, is Leguizamo’s fifth one-man play, and it became his third on Broadway earlier this year. Previous works include Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, and Sexaholix…a Love Story.
In his latest show he talks about the people, places and things in his life — everything from his adolescence to his stints on Tinsel Town sound stages. He talks openly about his tribulations and failures, but also about his successes.
With his Murry Bergtraum High School yearbook picture blazing on a screen behind him revealing his bushy Latin hair, he talks about how he had a “sad fro” and how his father told him to “Cut that ugly thing off, you’re not black.” He goes on to talk about how he knew acting was in his blood, because he “used to have to watch my moms pay the rent.” He makes fun of being so ‘ghetto’ that his family couldn’t afford a “t” or an “h,” which is why words like “booth” came out sounding like “boof.”
“That’s how I used to talk,” he says.
John Leguizamo in "Ghetto Klown"
“I hadn’t written in 10 years,” says Leguizamo, whose speech is rapid and rhythmic. “I was having performance anxiety. This time, for this show, I did research. I started doing talks at colleges for students. Just talked about my life and just stuff that was happening. At that time, I was drinking a lot. The kids loved it. I would go home and write it down before I passed out.”
Leguizamo will be the first to tell you that doing a one-man show takes a lot of focus and effort.
“I’ve been working on this show eight years, to hone it and make it a masterpiece,” says Leguizamo, who showcased the production in Philadelphia, New Haven, Santa Fe, Louisville, La Jolla, Berkeley, Toronto, and at Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. “It took endless amounts of hours to try to make it poetry. It’s a massive amount of work. I’ve also included some music.”
The music he speaks of is a CD called Ghetto Klown: Music From My Hood.
“It’s some of the most beautiful salsa from the 60s and 70s,” says Leguizamo. “It was when jazz and Latin music was coming together in Manhattan. This music is some of the best.”
Of course, the music featured in the show is much like the soundtrack of his life.
“All the music in the show is there to show a different time period,” he explains. “I got James Brown, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, Kool Moe Dee. I went back to the ’70s with the hustle, then the ’90s and then 2000. I threw in some Al Green just for a love montage, then I went back to James Brown.”
John Leguizamo
And, if there’s music, there just has to be some dancing.
“Oh, yeah, I’m from NY, it’s all blended,” he laughs. “The brothas – yes, the Latins – yes. I got my moves from both. I was influenced by the brothas. That’s who I went to the house parties with.”
A somewhat roguish performer, Leguizamo likes to take his audience to the brim and then dangle them over the edge.
“I like to shock the audience,” he explains. “I really do. I like to pull the rug underneath them a little bit. I try not to pull punches in Ghetto Klown. It’s all right there, man. All the good and all the bad. Just how raw can I be? It’s dangerous. It’s a risk. I reveal stuff most people don’t want people to know. But I put it all out there. People say they are inspired by the show. I feel protected by them.”
Exposing himself, so to speak, doesn’t bother Leguizamo. When he’s on stage, he says it’s as if he’s in another world.
“The live theater experience….when it’s good, it’s like religion,” he says. “It’s in your body for the rest of your life. It’s a shared experience. You go to places you never thought you would go. It’s a communion you can’t have anywhere else. You can’t take that experience from me. I can do it in a wheelchair, on a gurney or in a cot.”
Leguizamo’s favorite theatrical arena is Broadway. “Man, there is nothing like Broadway,” he says. “Nothing. Broadway is like the Olympics. It’s where everyone is trying to go. You work all your life to get there. The old theaters from turn-of-the century – it’s a thrill. The mix of people in one house – celebrating and enjoying the theater. There is nothing like it.”
John Leguizamo
While his audiences are laughing, Leguizamo is taking the opportunity to work out personal kinks.
“This is therapeutic and it’s cheaper than therapy,” he says. “It’s great to get it out there. It un-demonizes everything. However, you’re stuck with living it every night. When I’m writing and then doing the show, I’m working through all of that childhood pain, neglect, abandonment – I check all those boxes. I try to break it all down and figure out what are all those trigger points. But I flip it around and made it positive.”
Talking to Leguizamo is a scream. He’s personable, witty, forthcoming and smart. He has a keen sense of self and a bead on life’s surprises and assortment of ups and downs.
“I’m a lot of things,” says Leguizamo. “I’m tall for my height (5’8”), I’m portable. I try to keep a light perspective on life. I try to be involved. I’m passionate, intense and very loyal. I love to enjoy my life. I don’t like BS. I find that people reveal their characters pretty soon. I can smell that out.”
A married (Justine, eight years) father of two (Allegra – 11, Lucas – 10), Leguizamo has a life that seems ready-made for the stage. And while it looks like he may be gliding through it, Leguizamo doesn’t want his audience to get it twisted.
“When I do my shows, I want the audiences to know how resilient I am and how it wasn’t that easy,” he says. “It looks easy, but it wasn’t.”
John Leguizamo
When he was 17, Leguizamo, who currently lives in New York’s Central Village by way of Jackson Heights, Queens and Bogota, Columbia (he moved to the US when he was three), began taking acting classes.
“I wanted to be an actor,” says Leguizamo, who didn’t have a Plan B. “I thought it was great to become other people and learn how other people behave and why and to get out of trouble in high school. It was my math teacher who recommended I take acting classes. I knew I was going to do something in entertainment. If not in front of, then maybe I’d work behind.”
His first play was Dino, which is about a troubled youth. Since then he’s done one-man shows, television and film. He’s had some success, some not so successful ventures, but a boatload of fun trying to make it all work. Today, he’s happy with his career – somewhat.
“For theater – yes, I’m very happy,” says Leguizamo. “Film is kind of strange. I feel lost. Maybe I’ll go to television. Television is doing edgy, interesting stuff like Mad Men, Modern Family, Parenthood and Californication. Movies just ride. Nothing really important is being said. Nothing uplifting.”
Regrets, he’s had a few.
“I wish I had not turned down so many things,” he says. “Like, I wish I hadn’t turned down Shaft, the one with Jeffrey Wright. Also, Blow and The Specialist and a lot of television shows. I was waiting for a special part written just for me….I’m not as picky anymore.”
John Leguizamo
His has been a slow and steady progression. He remembers clearly the moment he knew he was in his lane.
“It happened back in the day when I did my [first] one-man show,” he explains. “That was the first time I felt it. I was in a tiny theater. I was in the hallway of the American Place Theatre. I had to be done with my show before the main theater started. I looked out and a lot of celebrities were there. A lot. Some of them who came through were Madonna, Al Pacino, Ruben Blades, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Robert Townsend, all of them were there. There were only 70 seats and I had all these incredible people in the audience. Everybody who was anybody was there. Remember, I was in the hallway. I had to be done by 9, when the main show would start.”
At the moment, things seem to be going his way. He laughs a lot.
“Oh, I laugh all the time,” he says. “What makes me laugh are outrageous people and really smart people. Life teaches you a lesson every time. Life makes me laugh. Every time you think you got it, life wallops you – then I laugh.”
Ghetto Klown, opens Sept. 30; plays Tues.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun. at 5 pm, through Oct. 16. Tickets: $42.50-$115. The Ricardo Montalban Theatre, 1615 Vine St., Hollywood. Call 800-595-4849 or visit www.tix.com, box office information: 323-461-0663 or www.ghettoklown.com, www.twitter.com/ghettoklown
***All production photos by Carol Rosegg
