John Leguizamo Blasts Hollywood for 'Colorism:' 'I Stayed Out of the Sun So I Could Work'
Activist actor John Leguizamo is calling out Hollywood for “colorism” and says that he avoids getting a tan so that his skin isn’t too dark to make him unable to find work.
The Encanto and Ice Age star claims that roles for light-skinned Latinos are plentiful but the opportunities for darker skinned Hispanics are far less available.
“There’s colorism within Latin culture that we have to fix, but there’s colorism in Hollywood too,” Leguizamo says in a new series titled, Seen.
“I’ve benefitted from being light skin, and I stayed out of the sun so I could work. I definitely would not go in the sun.” the Spawn star added. “For years I was so pasty so I could work. All the Latinos who’ve made it so far, a lot of them were light skinned. What happened to all the Afro Latinos and the majority of the indigenous Latinos? They don’t get a shot.”
Watch below:
Leguizamo went on to say that he was fired from a movie because the project had too many Latin actors in it. He said that the director told him he was being let go because they “couldn’t have two Latin people in the movie because then it becomes a Latin movie.”
“He meant he can only have one token at a time,” Leguizamo exclaimed.
Leguizamo also claimed that he has faced retaliation for speaking out.
“Being vocal has a cost. When I became politically conscious and then politically on my social, I lost half my followers,” Leguizamo explained. “Then I got a lot of hate tweets like, ‘Go back to your country. Go back to Mexico.’ I’m not Mexican but I’ll gladly go back to Mexico because it’s a great country. When I post stuff on my Facebook, they say, ‘John used to be so entertaining, but now you’re a bore.’ All this hate stuff, I just ignore. I feel like if you’ve achieved a certain amount of success, it’s your duty to give back. You gotta give back.”
The interview was part of a series sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Leguizamo has certainly been vocal about his political ideas and has spent years accusing people of racism for one reason or another. Last September, for instance, he attacked the recently announced Super Mario Bros. reboot for being “too white.”
Leguizamo, who starred in 1993’s Super Mario Bros., blasted the upcoming project for having an all-white case.
In July, Leguizamo attacked opponents of Critical Race Theory, and said that those against CRT should “calm the fuck down.”
“No one is teaching this stuff to your young kids so calm the fuck down,” he said contrary to the evidence. “It’s pretty high brow college-level stuff. And if your kids go to college, they’re gonna definitely be exposed to this shit whether you agree with it no matter what you think. So again, calm the fuck down.”
Leguizamo was also a constant anti-Trumper and attacker of white people, Republicans, and conservatives, on his social media accounts.
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