By Rob. Walton
Summer 2001 is the Summer of John. John Leguizamo, whose most visible role came in Summer of Sam, can be seen in cinemas across America as the voyeuristic, hunchbacked artist Toulouse-Lautrec ogling Nicole Kidman in the runaway hit Moulin Rouge and as a con man opposite Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito in What's the Worst That Could Happen?. This fall, he shares the screen with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Collateral Damage, and he joins Marisa Tomei and Rosie Perez in King of the Jungle (which he also produced). Later this year, he appears with Wesley Snipes and Natasha Lyonne in Zigzag, then with Denise Richards and Isabella Rosellini in Empire.
The Colombia-born New Yorker has always kept this busy, appearing in dozens of shows before most people knew his name. Blink and you'll miss him in Madonna's 1983 Borderline video. The guy who killed Al Pacino in Carlito's Way, crippled Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry and exchanged fire with Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2: Die Harder -- that's Leguizamo. But he finally got noticed in 1993 when he broke free of the Latino hood parts and co-starred in the movie version of Super Mario Bros.
Soon, he stole To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything from co-stars Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze, went chest-to-chest with Robert De Niro in The Fan and held his own as Tybalt, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet for Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann. Since then, he played the scary Clown in Spawn, but his most acclaimed film role to date is as womanizing Italian-American New York clubgoer Vinny in Spike Lee's 1977-set period film Summer of Sam.
Leguizamo's three one-man stage shows -- Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama and Freak -- have earned him Obie, Emmy and CableACE Awards. He's currently on a 20-city U.S. tour with his fourth, John Leguizamo Live!, which kicks off with a Latino for Dummies segment before segueing to such issues as sex tips culled from his lesbian aunt, the power of make-up sex and his girlfriend's Brazilian wax. Leguizamo says this will be his last tour, since he's the father of two children, Allegra (3) and Ryder Lee (nearly 1), with longtime girlfriend Justine Maurer.
In the meantime, Leguizamo, 37, confides in Playboy.com about his "devirginization," the deserved rep of Latin lovers and his real-life There's Something About Mary moment.
1. You told the New York Post in a Summer of Sam interview that you were a teen in 1977 trying to get into the New York clubs. "I was hormonally charged. I was trying to devirginize myself all summer long, and I couldn't." When did you finally devirginize yourself? What were the circumstances?
John Leguizamo: I sort of devirginized myself the year after when I was about 14. All my friends talk about this when we have a couple beers, like, the definition of sex. Clinton's was "blow jobs isn't sex." I guess if you don't...spooge.... (I'm trying to think of a polite word). I guess it wasn't considered devirginization, because I had sex when I was 14 with this girl, but I didn't, um, fulfill my duties, so my friends said that's not considered devirginization, but I think it is. Everyone's got their own terms of sex, anyway. Anything that touches my penis is sex, I don't care. Any fondling of my genitals is sex. I don't care how far we go or how far we don't go.
