John Leguizamo Talks ‘Ride Along’, His Latest Flick Along Ice Cube [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

Latin Times reporter Amanda Schiavo spoke with John Leguizamo about his newest film, "Ride Along." Leguizamo stars as Santiago alongside Kevin Hart and Ice Cube in the hilarious action comedy now in theatres: "Fast-talking security guard Ben joins his cop brother-in-law James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta in order to prove himself worthy of marrying Angela, James' sister."

Latin Times: I want to talk to you about your movie “The Ride Along,” I saw it last night.

John Leguizamo: Were you here in Miami or were you in New York?

LT: I’m in New York.

JL: So you saw it at a screening with a lot of people? How was the reaction?

LT: Really good. The theatre was roaring. They loved it.

JL: Good, good.

LT: So what attracted you to that role, what made you decide you wanted to do it?

JL: Well first of all I thought the movie was hilarious man, I was reading it on the subway, I was laughing out loud, people thought I was a crazy homeless person. I was incognito, I had like a fur hat and too many coats on. But I thought it was the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. The story and the character was interesting. We are going to make this a really intense, crazy, sicko dude and I really enjoyed that.

LT: Yeah I wasn’t expecting your character to have that flip – it was a surprise.

JL: Yeah I like surprises. We have to talk about it in code, you know because we don’t want to give spoilers.

LT: Oh, no of course. So how was Ice Cube and Kevin Hart?

JL: They are the nicest dudes in the business I gotta say, we had a blast. We had instant chemistry with Bryan Callen, and we were laughing all day long. Even though it took time to do our work, we did our work. You know, Cube is the nicest dude, you know Mr. ‘check yourself before you wreck yourself’ was always killing us with stories of the old NWA. And then Kevin Hart is just hilarious all the time. What you see on camera, he’s basically the same person off camera.

LT: So do you have a favorite scene?

JL: I think the fighting sequence was a blast, you know fighting each other. And you know me and Cube doing it for real like an action flick, and then you got Kevin rolling down between Fishburne’s legs, jumping off the furniture, so it was fun in a lot of different ways.

LT: Yeah that scene was very very funny. Have you done a lot of action films like that?

JL: I’ve done a lot of action films but not a lot of action comedies. This is my first action comedy.

LT: When you’re offered a part what do you look for that makes you say ‘yes I want to do something like this’?

JL: Well first I gotta like the script, the actors and the director and then I look at the role and I go, you know, can I bring something to this? Can I have fun here? And if I can’t then I’m off.

LT: And would you say that you like live action or animated films better?

JL: Oh I can’t choose. I can’t do that. I love animated voices and I love you can go in there as dirty and funky as you are and nobody cares. And I love action movies cause, action comedies especially cause I grew up on those, you know “48 Hours” and “Beverly Hills Cop”, that’s my favorite genre, I’d never been in one so it was a real pleasure to be a part of this.

LT: Oh wow it sounds like you guys really enjoyed yourselves.

JL: Oh yeah. We went to a shooting gallery, we hung out with the Atlanta PD, so you know we did some real rugged stuff even though it’s a hilarious comedy.

LT: So how would you prepare for a live action compared to when you’re just using your voice in an animated feature?

JL: Well you gotta prepare for both, but you know in an animated feature I’m just in my room by myself doing a whole bunch of voices til I found the voice I’m looking for. In an action film you gotta go out there and meet the people that you’re playing and do research. It’s more getting outside of yourself and comedy is more getting inside yourself.

LT: Oh okay. And what attracted you to comedy? What made you decide that that was where you wanted to go?

JL: Well you know I didn’t choose comedy, comedy chose me. I was just a crazy kid in school getting into a lot of trouble and making people laugh. And my math teacher Mr. Zuffo said “Mr. Lesqueezamo, instead of disrupting our class why don’t you use your talent to become a comedian?” And you know he was like the first mentor I had.

LT: So you told me a little bit about working with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube – what was it like on set for you guys? Were there a lot of pranks? What was it like on set with the whole cast.

JL: Goofing around all the time. Bryan Callen is also a really big funny comedian, and Kevin Heart so we were just all goofin you know, so there was always hilarity happening, you can’t have a lot of comedians in the room and not have everybody joking all the time.

LT: Yeah I suppose that’s true. What are you working on next?

JL: I got “Fugly” coming out, a movie that I wrote. With Radha Mitchell, Rosie Perez coming out in March – it’s an anti-romantic comedy. And then I have “Ghetto Klown” coming out March 28 on HBO – my play. That one’s about my career, it tells the story of an artist, mid-life crises, career menopause, you know, I really tell it like it is and talk about my break down. It’s a lot of real real stories about my life to help people and inspire people.

LT: Oh wow and is that something that you did for HBO or did they come to you for that?

JL: No I did that on Broadway and then I toured around the world with it.

LT: Oh wow what was that experience like?

JL: That was wild man. I’d never been to England and people there really dug it ‘cause they don’t really like you talking about yourself, they think it’s kinda rude, but my point there was more kind of a self-deprecating story than just, you know, blowing up my own spot. Yeah that was fun man, going to England and then I took it to Colombia, took it to Latin America. And I realized no matter what state you’re from, we all share the same stories man, the same heart.