John Leguizamo said during an interview on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM radio show that it was “difficult” working with Patrick Swayze on their 1995 movie “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.” The cult classic starred Leguizamo, Swayze and Wesley Snipes as three drag queens whose road trip across America to attend a competition in Hollywood is upended when their car breaks down.
“Rest in peace, I love him. He was just neurotic and I’m not … you know, I’m neurotic too but, I don’t know. He was just … it was difficult working with him,” Leguizamo said of Swayze. “Just neurotic, I think maybe a tiny bit insecure. And then Wesley and I, we vibed because we’re people of color and we got each other. And I’m also an improviser, and [Patrick] didn’t like that.”
Leguizamo said that Swayze “couldn’t keep up with” with his co-stars’ improvisations on set “and it would make him mad and upset sometimes.”
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“He’d be like, ‘Are you gonna say a line like that?’ I’d go, ‘You know me. I’m gonna do me. I’m gonna just keep making up lines,'” Leguizamo said. “He goes, ‘Well, can you just say the line the way it is?’ I go, ‘I can’t. And the director [Beeban Kidron] didn’t want me to.”
Both Swayze and Leguizamo ended up earning Golden Globe nominations for their performances in “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.” The film’s supporting cast also included Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner, Arliss Howard and Chris Penn.
Leguizamo went on to call “Too Wong Foo” a “very important film,” noting, “A lot of transgender kids and LGBTQ+ kids come up to me who are now a little older and say because of that character they felt confident to come out to their parents. That’s what art is supposed to do. Art is supposed to give people courage. Art is supposed to teach people empathy. That’s what I got in the business for.”
Watch Leguizamo’s full interview with Andy Cohen in the video below.
