It was a very difficult childhood in my household.
And my neighborhood, you know?
And comedy and humor was the thing that kept me going,
that kept me... you know, gave me hope
and gave me the perspective that I could survive anything.
And my household was very, very repressed.
I was getting beat up at home and beat up in the streets.
I was just fighting for my life all the time.
And I was very disruptive.
You know, I would lock teachers out of the classroom,
I'd keep them in the elevator all day long.
I'd organize walkouts.
I was very organized.
And I could move people to do things with me,
but very disruptive.
And a math teacher, Mr. Zufa, came up to me, he was like,
"Mr. Leguizamo, look, if they can make penicillin
"out of moldy bread, they can make something out of you.
"Let me challenge you to try to be a comedian
or an actor."
And I was like, "You know, maybe you're right."
And I started taking acting classes.
And then I found myself in those acting classes.
And it gave me an ability and a talent and a skill.
All that adversity, all that difficulty,
was what shaped my humor and shaped me,
and gave me the wherewithal to go out into a system
that, you know, wasn't really friendly to Latin people.
And the auditions, then, it would be just four guys.
It would be me, Benecio del Toro, Benjamin Bratt.
And we'd all be up for the same gangbanger,
or the same janitor, you know?
So we'd come in there, "Yo, what's up?
How you doing, man?"
Or we'd be like, (with Spanish accent) "Pleasure to meet you."
You know, so that's the roles we got.
And I was there... and I went to NYU, man.
I studied theater with Lee Strasburg.
I studied with some of the great acting teachers.
And this is the role you're going to give me?
And I was like, "Nuh-uh.
I'm not going to accept that," you know?
So I started writing my own stuff as my antidote.
My thing was different.
I mean, I did the comedy clubs.
I didn't like it much.
I didn't like the joke, setup, joke, setup.
I was a storyteller, man.
I wanted to tell stories.
I wanted to tell my story and Latin people's story,
and to do characters and stuff.
So I found myself in the downtown clubs doing...
you know, I was doing crazy stuff back then.
It was these 20 minute pieces where I would play
all the characters, and it would be like
if Latin people had created the Bible,
if the West had been won by Mexicans instead of
the white people.
And one of the things I loved the most is theater
because it gave me the freedom to be myself
completely, without anybody coming in and stepping in
and going, "You know what, John?
"We can't really talk about sex, John.
No, we can't really say that word."
You know, I've had great opportunities,
and I've enjoyed it all.
But I'm always questing true expression.
And it's a good thing, you know?
I think it's one of my great motivators.
I read that 45% of Latin kids drop out of school.
I thought, "That's a tragedy, man.
That can't be happening."
Not in this country, not in this day and age.
And I was like, "I want to do a show to show kids
"that I came from where they came from,
"and everything was against me, and it was because
"of mentors, and because I was able to somehow find a dream
"somehow and believe long enough to put me in a place
where somebody could help me."
I couldn't have done it by myself.
You need somebody to come in and tell you,
"You're worth something."
And I think that's what I wanted to give.
Whatever kids came to my show, they know what I'm
talking about, and you feel that emotion.
I feel it in the house.
You know, the screams.
I can hear them crying at times.
I hear the laughter, the laughter of release.
Of, like, total release and understanding.
And it's church.
You know, it's beautiful.