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I Had To Get The Voice Back, The Precise Pitch Of Sid's Voice And I'd Forgotten That I'd Pitched Him Higher Than My Regular Voice, So That Was A Little Difficult To Begin With. It Was Especially Hard Because We Started Recording In The Morning So I Had To Warm Up A Lot And My Usual Voice Is A Little More Gravelly.

-John Leguizamo

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I Had To Get

John Leguizamo

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I Had To Get The Voice Back, The Precise Pitch Of Sid's Voice And I'd Forgotten That I'd Pitched Him Higher Than My Regular Voice, So That Was A Little Difficult To Begin With. It Was Especially Hard Because We Started Recording In The Morning So I Had To Warm Up A Lot And My Usual Voice Is A Little More Gravelly.

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In Moulin Rouge I Could Not Change The Name Of Toulouse-lautrec Obviously To Toulouse-lautrec- Martinez. But In Er I Did That, My Name Is Dr Victor Clemente, So Sometimes It Is Possible.

I Think As You Mature As An Actor Things Open Up To You In A Lot Of Ways, Especially If You Do Work On Yourself.

I Wanted To Enjoy The Process. I Wanted To Enjoy Just Being On Stage And Giving Back And The Feedback.

Acting Is Kind Of A Calling For Me So I'm Just Happy To Be There And Do Great Work.

You Grow Up Latin In This Country And You're A Third Class Citizen From The Word Go, And So You Have To Deal With Everything Around You From That Point Of View And Trying To Feel Entitled.

To Be A Comedian, You Gotta Jokesmith, There's No Way Around It.

I Was Always Writing. I Was Writing In High School Because It Was A Really Competitive School For Class Clowns; I Used To Have To Write All Of My Snaps And My Disses The Night Before And Then Act Like I Was Making It Up The Next Day.

Independent Film Is For Actors That Love To Act.

I Love Independent Films, It's The Only Place As An Actor You're Totally Allowed To Breathe.

I Like Drama. I Love Being In A Drama Where I Get To Be The Funny Guy. That's What I Really Love The Most.

Is There A God? Yeah, But There's Not Just One God. There's A Whole Lot Of Gods, Because One God Couldn't Have Possibly Made So Many Mistakes All By Himself. This Had To Be Done By Committee.

Sid [the Character From 'ice Age'] Is A Prehistoric Sloth. Sloths Move Really Slowly And They Store Food In The Cheek Pouches. That's Where I Got The Voice That You Hear. He Had To Sound As Though He Was Storing Food.

People Can Be Anonymous When They Go On Blogs And Say Crazy Things That They Would Never Have The Courage To Say To Your Face.

Some Kids Are Fine, But Often I Don't Like What I See In Child Actors. My Kids Are Young And They Are Already Showing An Interest, So I Have To Try To Discourage Them, Squash That In Them.

I Like Helping People Achieve Their Dreams Just Like People Helped Me.

Bryan Cranston Is Generous, He's Funny. When We Did A Wedding Scene [in The Infiltrator ], At The End Of The Movie With A Big Set Piece, He Put The Veil Off The Bride, He Put It On, He Pretended Like We Were Getting Married, He's Just A Goof.

Most Of The Great Directors I've Worked With - De Palma, Spike Lee - Like Rehearsals.

Don't Confuse The Beginning Of My World With The Breakup Of Yours.

I'm Hoping My Play Opens Up Conversations, I Hope It Makes People Question Textbooks, I Hope It Makes #oscarssowhite And #hollywoodsowhite Question Things. I Hope My Play Sparks Conversation Between Latin Kids And Latin Parents And People Start Doing Their Own Due Diligence As Well, I Think It's Everyone's Responsibility.

It's All About Respect; He's Looking For Respect From His Buddies. In The Last One He Just Wanted To Hang Out, To Be Part Of The Group, But This Time He Wants More From His Friends. And Without Giving The Story Away, He Finally Gets Something That He Has Been Looking For When The Mini Sloths Kidnap Him And Take Him To Their Tribal Area. He Gets To Be The Fire King And They Worship Him And There Is An Amazing Scene With A "call And Response" Sequence In The Style Of Cab Callow [the Legendary American Jazz Singer And Band Leader] Between Him And His Audience.

We Are Taking Our Culture And Suturing It To America. Like Gum On The Bottom Of A Shoe, We Are Not Going To Disappear. Unlike Other Peoples Who Totally Assimilated, We Are More Interested In Co-assimilation.

I Was Just School Class Clown And That Was It. Someday I'll Get A Job As A Cab Driver Or Whatever.

I Did Brad's First Film The Take And I'm Glad Brad [furman] Has Not Calmed Down. I Don't Want Him To Ever Calm Down.

There Were No Latin People On 'star Trek,' That This Was Proof That They Weren't Planning To Have Us Around For The Future.

The New York Times Made You Or Broke You.

It's A Product Of Being An Actor, You Know? A Lot Of Your Work Doesn't End Up On Camera And Some Of The Best Things Aren't Always In The Final Product. But Yeah, A Lot Of My Stuff Got Cut And It Was Painful, But I Know It Was For The Better Of The Movie.

I Had A Great Movement Teacher - He Showed Me How To Walk So I Wasn't Becoming Like A Cartoon.

The Thing I Gravitated To Was Being The Class Clown. It Was Very Competitive.

I Really Love It, I Love Working With Directors That Are Very Collaborative And Allow Me Input. I've Done Over 75 Films, It's Just Like You're An Apprentice. You Learn So Much About Camerawork, Lenses, And I'm Always Talking About Dps And Directors And They Always Give Me Lists. I Think Pretty Soon, I'll Be Ready To Move Away From Being In Front Of The Camera.

After Kids Leave The House, They Can Decide To Do Whatever They Want, But While They're Under My Roof, They're Going To Be Lawyers Or Writers Or Something, Something Important, Anything Except Actors.

I Was Working At Kentucky Fried Chicken When My Math Teacher Said, "you're Failing In School, You're Messing Up, Why Don't You Just Try This?" I Said, "alright, Let Me Try It," And I Started Going To Acting Classes And I Loved It. I Thought, "i May Not Make It But I Love Doing It."

I Did 40 Voices For Chris Wedge, The Director Of The First Film, Before Coming Up With The Version We Used. He Was Hard To Please, I Don't Know Why. I Gave Him Really Slow Talking Voices. Then I Thought Perhaps Sid Could Be An Indian Sounding Sloth. To Find Out More About My Character, I Watched Footage Of Sloths. I Discovered That The Food They Store In Their Pouches Rots And Ferments And Half The Time They're Drunk.

Yes It Did Really. It Was Very Exciting To Find That My Energy Could Be Directed Into Something More Useful And Positive. I Was Starting To Get Panicked. I Was Thinking 'what Am I Going To Do With My Life?' I Wasn't Sure What Was Going To Happen. Then I Became Crazily Obsessed With Acting. I Suddenly Had A Work Ethic And Then Everything Changed Completely For The Better Because I Knew What I Wanted To Do With My Life.

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It Takes Time To Understand Yourself, To Go Inside Yourself And To Question Yourself And Really Take Yourself To Task. That's Self-expression.

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I Had To Get The Voice Back, The Precise Pitch Of Sid's Voice And I'd Forgotten That I'd Pitched Him Higher Than My Regular Voice, So That Was A Little Difficult To Begin With. It Was Especially Hard Because We Started Recording In The Morning So I Had To Warm Up A Lot And My Usual Voice Is A Little More Gravelly.

But When You Are Doing An Animated Voice, It Has To Have More Energy Than Usual Or It Falls Flat And Doesn't Work. For Myself, I Found That I Had To Put Myself In The Same Physical Or Emotional State As Sid, In Order To Make That Voice Sound Alive And Authentic. So If There Was A Scene In Which He Was Running, I Would Be Running Beforehand To Sound Out Of Breath. That's Important Because The Audience Can Tell Intuitively If It Does Not Sound Real.

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I Had To Work With Ben Mendelsohn Who's One Of The Great Actors Of Our Time. I Had A Lot Of Scenes With Him And I Was Thrilled To Be On The Set With Him; I Just Wanted To See How We Were Going To Play It.

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[brad Furman] Is Incredibly Collaborative, Man. He's So Respectful Of Talent, He Has So Much Admiration For Talent. He Nurtures You, He Lets You Give Input. Of Course We'll Debate If We Disagree, That's Just A Healthy Atmosphere To Air Your Differences.

Teachers Are Everything. I Mean, You're A Poor Kid From The Ghetto, Your Parents Are Busy Working 24/7, Working Like A Mexican.

You Can't Really Walk Anywhere. Where Are You Going To Go? Everything Closes At A Certain Hour And It's A Highway With Bars On It; That's What It Is.

When You Feel The World Is Against You Or You Give Up Hope, You Look At Your Heroes And Say, "they Were Able To Do It. They Had Hard Times And A Lot Of Opposition, But They Got Through It." Then You Feel, "i Can Do It Too."

My Parents Were Incredibly Strict, Almost Military Style.

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