“It’s always been a battle. Hollywood is not the most accepting place,” Leguizamo complained, as he prepares to star in one of the most anticipated films of the decade.
John Leguizamo has spent years criticizing Hollywood for what he sees as its failure to cast more Latino actors in major productions, despite currently starring in one of the most anticipated films of the decade, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Speaking recently about his career, Leguizamo told Variety that Hollywood remains resistant to Latino representation despite the community’s importance to the entertainment industry. “It’s always been a battle. Hollywood is not the most accepting place,” Leguizamo complained.
“Even though we Latin people are 30% to 40% of the box office — and a third of streamers — we’re the most aggressively underrepresented group in America.” The Odyssey has already generated controversy over casting and representation.
The film features a star-studded ensemble including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Elliot Page and Leguizamo himself, who has long been one of Hollywood’s most vocal advocates for Latino representation, frequently claiming that industry studies show Latinos remaining underrepresented in leading film and television roles.
His comments provoked a backlash on X. “He should ask the Greeks how they feel about him taking a role away from them,” one user pointed out. Two years ago, Leguizamo complained to ABC, “The executives are not Latinos… they don’t look like us. We’re a growing demographic and yet aggressively underrepresented.”
A user prompted Grok to confirm that “Homer’s Odyssey is an ancient Greek epic poem set in the Bronze Age Mediterranean. It features Greek characters, therefore the modern ethnic category ‘Latino’ did not exist and applies to none of them”.