John Leguizamo jokes that if white actors keep getting cast in Latino roles, he's going to cast himself as Gwyneth Paltrow in a movie about her ski accident trial
Theo Wargo/Getty; Rick Bowmer/Pool/AP
- John Leguizamo joked that "if white people can take" Latino roles, he'll "take theirs."
- Leguizamo said he'd cast himself as Gwyneth Paltrow in a TV series about her ski accident trial.
- Leguizamo has been outspoken about the dearth of Latino representation in Hollywood.
John Leguizamo joked about taking a role from a white actor by playing Gwyneth Paltrow in a movie about her ongoing ski accident trial while highlighting Latino underrepresentation in Hollywood.
The actor, who currently stars in Prime Video's "The Power," is currently guest hosting "The Daily Show" following the departure of its host Trevor Noah. On Monday's episode, Leguizamo spoke about the phenomenon of white actors like James Franco, who was cast as Fidel Castro in the film "Alina of Cuba," being cast in Latino roles.
"W,ell guess what? If white people can take our roles, Imma take theirs," Leguizamo said.
"When they do the TV series based on Gwyneth Paltrow's ski accident trial, Imma be Gwyneth Paltrow," he continued, before launching into an impression of the actor and Goop founder.
Paltrow is in court after retired optometrist Terry Sanderson sued her for negligence in 2019, claiming that she was at fault when she crashed into him on a slope in 2016. Paltrow, who has disputed parts of Sanderson's story, countersued, saying that Sanderson ran into her, Insider previously reported.
Leguizamo has been outspoken about the dearth of Latino representation in Hollywood, penning an open letter to the industry in the Los Angeles Times in 2022 about the long-standing issue.
"You may think Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bad Bunny, J Lo, Benicio del Toro and I are the only ones, but you are wrong," he wrote. "There are millions of Latinos, and we were just among the few to be allowed through."
A USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study published in 2021 of 1,300 of the top-grossing films from 2007 to 2019 found that only 3.5% of leads and co-leads in those films were Hispanic or Latino, despite the group composing 18.7% of the US population.
In December 2022, Leguizamo told Insider that it was "odd" to act opposite white actors like Al Pacino, who played a Latino character in the film "Carlito's Way." In another instance, Leguizamo said, he was denied a role because of an "unspoken 'Latin quota'" in a film, when a director told him that he couldn't "have two Latin people in the movie."
"I can't tell you how many times in my career I've been told at auditions that I sound too Latino, not Latino enough, that Latinos don't want to watch other Latinos, all sorts of madness," he said on "The Daily Show."