John Leguizamo Admitted That He Stayed Out of the Sun To Land Movie Roles

John Leguizamo is opening up about how the choices he made to break into the industry as a Latino performer.

The 57-year-old Encanto star, who voices the now-infamous Bruno, opened up in am interview for the Academy Awards’ Seen series, revealed that he “stayed out of the sun” so he could land roles.

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“I definitely would not go in the sun for years. It was a conscious thing because I could work,” John shared, knowing that more light skinned Latinos would get roles over darker skinned people.

He added, “All the Latinos that made it so far, a lot of them were all light-skinned. What happened to all the Afro-Latinos and the majority of indigenous Latinos? They don’t get a shot, you know. So, there’s a lot of things we got to deal with in Hollywood, and we got to fix, and we got to speak out and we got to speak up.”

He then recalled being told by studio executives, “Latin people don’t want to see Latin people.”

“There is an audience and a hunger. So, I know that exists regardless of what a studio head or network says to me anymore,” John added, as he recently made the decision to run for governor of the Academy. “You have to step up and make a change and change it from within. I feel like if you’ve achieved a certain amount of success, it’s your duty to give back.”