Why John Leguizamo Found Patrick Swayze 'Difficult' To Work With
Some Hollywood stars' career paths guide them through a wild series of projects. One such actor is John Leguizamo, whose CV is as lengthy as it is varied, with each of his roles seeming to come with its own fascinating story. Leguizamo was miserable wearing "Spawn's" Violator costume, but used the experience to fuel his portrayal of the demonic clown. He based his washed-up action star character in "The Menu" on Steven Seagal, and he watched and learned from Leonardo DiCaprio on "Romeo + Juliet's" set. However, there's one particular co-star he struggled to work with: Patrick Swayze.
During an interview with the SiriusXM show "Radio Andy" (via People), Leguizamo revealed that his tendency to improvise made filming Beeban Kidron's "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" with Swayze troublesome. The film is a road trip comedy about drag queens Vida Boheme (Swayze), Chi-Chi Rodriguez (Leguizamo), and Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes), who drive from New York to Los Angeles for an important pageant and become stranded in a small town. It may sound like a fun movie to film, but Swayze's aversion to Leguizamo's constant improvisation caused its share of difficulties.
"He'd be like, 'Are you gonna say a line like that?' I'd go, 'You know me. I'm gonna do me. I'm gonna just keep making up lines,'" Leguizamo recalled. "He goes, 'Well, can you just say the line the way it is?' I go, 'I can't.' And the director didn't want me to." At one point in the shoot, the pair's differences even nearly escalated into fisticuffs. "We were about to fight but were like, 'Take a look at ourselves — we're in hot pants and f*** me pumps.' It was ridiculous!" LeGuiamo told Yahoo! Entertainment. "So we stopped and we hugged."
Leguizamo feels his improvisation rewrote Chi-Chi
While "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" is a bona fide cult classic, it's perhaps understandable that Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo's on-set chemistry wasn't exactly perfect. Both Swayze and Wesley Snipes entered the movie as established leading men, and while Leguizamo had a decade of roles under his belt, his profile wasn't quite as high. As such, Swayze and Leguizamo essentially had the same dynamic as their characters, established drag queen star Vida and young "drag princess" Chi-Chi — but while Chi-Chi is very much a protégé who yearns to learn from the more experienced drag queens, Leguizamo's ideas about acting clashed with the way Swayze preferred to work.
Despite their on-set differences, Swayze and Leguizamo delivered amazing performances. In fact, they were both nominated for a Golden Globe for their roles in the 1995 movie. Looking back, Leguizamo says that his improvisation was a crucial part of elevating Chi-Chi to that level. "I rewrote that role. I expanded that role, 'cause that role was nothing," Leguizamo said in the "Radio Andy" interview. "Douglas Carter Beane may disagree because he wrote the script, but he knows what I brought to it."