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.Women know.They always know.So shebegan to grill me. C mon now, tell me.Just be honest.I promise you everythingwill be fine.I just gotta know. And I go, No honey, nothing ever happened. She insists, No, really.Just be honest.Look, I m not gonna beupset.I just need to know the truth. So I decided to fess up. Okay, I was seeing this girl She blew up. I knew it! You fucking asshole! You piece of shit! And she went off, breaking everything in the house.Isn t that always the way? People always say, I just wanna knowthe truth.I m not gonna be upset. And then you tell the truth andthey go apeshit.I learned my lesson.Never be honest. asualties of War was my first big Hollywoodmovie, but I didn t go for all that Hollywoodshit.Still don t.Still a New York boy.I didn tCgo to the premiere.I don t hardly ever goto the Academy Awards.Like Sean Penn, man.We re toomethod for that.I didn t care for any of it.It just seemedsuperfluous.See, I didn t want to be a movie star, I wanted to be anak-tohr.There s a big difference.Most movie stars aren t verygood.They re usually not talented.They re people who havea look the public likes, or they re clever enough businesswiseto manipulate the system, or they re all drive and ambition.Butthey re not real actors.Do I sound bitter? I don t think I am.Just realistic.Then again, New York isn t the New York it used to be, either.There was a time when New York was the Mecca for all the bestactors in America.They all came here to be the best and work withchapter6 Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends 65*the best.That s changed now, for a lot of reasons.For one thing,there s not a whole lot of real acting roles on Broadway anymore.It s all revivals of like Showboat or whatever.Or worse.You go to thetheater in New York City now, you re gonna see something likePuppetry of the Penis.And let me tell you, those penises ll be some ofthe best actors in town.Not the biggest dickheads in show business,but some of the most talented.Meanwhile, the finances of making movies in New York becamecrazy expensive.It all but shut the city down as a place to make mov-ies, and drove all the actors out to Hollywood, or Toronto.Torontostands in for New York in so many movies now the two cities shouldjust swap names.Or merge.Newronto.When I got to produce and direct Undefeated we shot everythingon location right here in New York Fucking City.Madison SquareGarden, the streets of Queens, a gay bar in Chelsea.Homeboy keepsit real, yo.Not that I have anything against Toronto.It s a cool city.Hip, butclean.And everybody s so polite.That s one way you know you renot in New York City.You bump into someone on the sidewalk inCanada, it s like a contest to see which one of you can apologizefastest. Oh I m sorry, eh. No no, excuse me.My bad, eh. Rubbish, my good man.My fault entirely, eh. It can go on for an hour.No wonder hockey s the national sport.They need to get out all that pent-up aggression somewhere.It s why the entire nation of Canada got into such an uproar whenTriumph the Insult Dog said nasty things about French Canadianson Conan O Brien s show.Members of the Canadian Parliament get-ting up to denounce a rubber dog puppet as a racist.It looked pretty 66 JOHN LEGUIZAMO*silly to us Americans, but after spending some time in Canada, I un-derstood it better.You just don t do things like that in Canada.Anyway, movies aren t really about acting anymore.They re thrillrides.They aren t about drama anymore; it s all action movies andbig, goofy comedies.So it isn t really necessary to have great actorsanymore.They just need guys who ve been to the gym.And actresseswho look good naked.Not that I have anything against actresses who look good naked.Word.Still, that s why whenever I get the chance I focus on making thekind of movies they used to make in the 1970s, dramas with strongstories and real acting.King of the Jungle, Empire, Undefeated, Cronicas.They re character-driven, not formula movies.Unfortunately there sno money in them, but it s the most exciting thing to do.That s how I keep explaining it to my wife, my agent, and my kidsdentist, anyway.My family and friends had funny reactions when they saw meon the screen in my first big Hollywood movie.When my father, Mr.Tough Love, saw Casualties of War, he said, I have two things to say.That was good.And it wasn t so good. I was like, Coño! What are you, a Zen master? I was expecting You re in a Hollywood movie! Instead I get Yoda. Good your per-formance was, and not so good. But that s my dad.I think down deep inside he was proud ofme, but he wasn t going to show it.Maybe he really was angry thatI was making it where he d failed.Hard as I worked to prove myselfto him, he worked just as hard not to let me see him be impressed.Leguizamo contra Leguizamo, lucha libre de la época!Moms was different.She was like, Oh, that was great you werethe best of them all! Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends 67* Okay, Ma.Let s not go crazy. Serge was excited for me too.Well, he and my mom had goneto every show I d ever done.My cousin, the whole family went toeverything I did.So did Cathy s parents.They went to everything.Her sister and brothers too.As for my friends from back in the neighborhood, my old possefrom Queens.well, I don t know, really.I had moved away from somany people, my life had changed so much, and I didn t see any ofthem anymore.I was a fish out of water.All the friends I had, really,were other actors, or comedians from when Cathy and I were doingthe clubs.I don t know if you could really call them friends.It was toocompetitive a world
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