John Leguizamo, the veteran stage and screen actor and leading activist for Latino representation in Hollywood, who is currently garnering career-best notices and Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Eumaeus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, is our guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of an audience of students at Chapman University.

Over the course of 42 years in the business, Leguizamo has worked with everyone. He has been directed by Brian De Palma, Spike Lee, Baz Luhrmann and Jon Favreau multiple times, as well as by Mike Nichols, George A. Romero, Ridley Scott, Todd Haynes, M. Night Shyamalan, Ava DuVernay and Christopher Nolan. And he has shared the screen with the likes of Sean Penn, Harrison Ford, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Wesley Snipes, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, Keanu Reeves, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Hart, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Matt Damon.

In the movies, he has starred in blockbuster studio franchises (Ice Age and John Wick), revered indies (Poison and Chef) and cult classics (Super Mario Bros. and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar). On TV, he has been on hit network shows (ER) and acclaimed limited series (Waco and When They See Us). And on the stage, he has written and starred in six acclaimed one-man shows. Between them all, he has accumulated an Emmy Award and a special Tony Award, as well as Golden Globe and Critics Choice award nominations.

But Leguizamo has never received an Oscar nomination — something that might well change as a result of his latest turn as the blind loyal servant of Odysseus in The Odyssey, which has been described by The Hollywood Reporter as “a delicate, moving, heartbreaking performance… that emerges as the heartbeat of the film” and by the Wall Street Journal as “the performance of his career.”

Over the course of this episode, the youthful 66-year-old reflected on his journey from Bogotá to Jackson Heights to Hollywood, and how his discovery of comedy and acting saved; how he managed to make early inroads into the business, despite the reluctance of people to cast Latinos as anything other than stereotypes; and why he hated working on ER, loved being part of the Ice Age series and Encanto, and was invited to play the villain Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming — before being uninvited.

He also went deep on The Odyssey: why it meant so much to him that Nolan decided to employ non-traditional casting for the film; how he prepared to play a blind and elderly man; what it was like acting in the first film shot entirely with IMAX cameras; how he processed seeing the film — and his performance — for the first time; plus more.

Here are his thoughts on a few assorted matters…

On the trans character that he played in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar…

“I shouldn’t be playing it today. Yeah, no, it’s not fair. There’s plenty of great LGBTQIA actors out there that could play these roles and should be playing these roles. But that was back then, that was the ’90s.”

On who can play which roles in 2026…

“In a fair world, which it never is, everybody should be able to play anything. But the thing is that nobody gets to play anything except white cisgender males. They were never casting disabled actors ever. And now directors that I know, friends of mine, make it a mandatory thing to cast one disabled actor, to create a role for them. How great is that for them? They wouldn’t cast gay actors, even in gay roles they wouldn’t, that’s the way it was. In Latin roles, a lot of white actors were taking Latin roles in brownface for the longest time, since Touch of Evil with Charlton Heston in brownface with the black mustache. It was crazy. So I think, in this moment of correction, and perhaps it’s an overcorrection, it’s important that we cast the people who are written as the role and give them the opportunities. I really believe that. And then maybe eventually, when things are fair, then everybody can play everything all over again.”

On Nolan’s decision to employ nontraditional casting for The Odyssey…

“Now that ancient story that’s so powerful to Western literature belongs to everyone, and how beautiful is that? How generous is that? How open and inviting is that, to have Lupita Nyong’o play twins, Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy, and Travis Scott be the bard, and Corey Hawkins be Polybus, one of the evil suitors?”

On being uninvited from 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming…

“They offered me Spider-Man, the Vulture, and then the head of the studio called me, ‘Oh, John, this is really terrible.’ We had already negotiated. We had accepted terms. I hadn’t signed a contract, but we had accepted terms. It was pretty far along negotiations. And she said, ‘We’d like the role back. Michael Keaton wants it back.’ And I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?” I’ve never heard of such a crazy thing.’ I could have sued, but my reps are all cowards. It could [also] backfire. I mean, I’m not a litigious person anyway. That’s not who I am. I’d rather move on and create my own stuff.”

When Skydance confirmed the company’s executive leadership team Monday, most industry reaction centered on elevated roles for content execs like Casey Bloys, Channing Dungey and George Cheeks.

But another exec in a key new post is JB Perrette, a veteran of streaming since its earliest days and a close associate of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. He is not only making the leap to the new company from a top position at WBD (something of a surprise given that execs at the company being acquired generally head for the exits), but his turf is also expanding in some intriguing ways.

Skydance is due to close the deal Tuesday morning, and Perrette will join Co-CEOs David Ellison, Ynon Kreiz and others at a press conference later that afternoon on the Paramount lot.

Upon the close of the $110 billion deal, Perrette will be Co-Chair & Chief Business Officer, Skydance DTC and Co-Chair & Chief Business Officer, Skydance TV. He will have direct global oversight of global distribution, advertising sales, content sales, DTC strategy, marketing and business operations.

Perrette is poised to benefit handsomely from the merger. An SEC filing last March said he would receive $142 million in various deal-related proceeds, though some portion of that could be deferred given his post in the new company. One source cited the massive payday as a potential motivating factor. “He certainly didn’t need the money,” the person said. “He obviously felt compelled by the opportunity.”

At WBD, Perrette was head of global streaming and gaming, leading the global rollout of HBO Max across more than 130 global markets, including the UK, Germany and Italy after the end of a longtime output deal with Sky. The WBD streaming business (which includes some niche services along with mother ship HBO Max) also turned profitable on Perrette’s watch. One less-desirable line on the resume is presiding with Zaslav over the inauspicious rebrand of HBO Max to Max in 2023. (After confusion and a degree of backlash among viewers, suppliers and advertisers, it reverted to its original name in 2025.)

While any exec who is in a high position long enough will have missteps, many industry and company sources Deadline spoke with described Perrette as a solid operational executive. Bloys may be the rainmaker with HBO and HBO Max content, but Perrette oversaw product design, global distribution deals and a host of other aspects of the streamer’s growth. Plus, he comes with a pedigree.

At Discovery, Perrette was head of digital and helped launch Eurosport’s streaming service as well as Discovery+, but his 11-year run at NBCUniversal yielded an industry milestone. Overlapping with Zaslav during their time at NBCU, Perrette rose to president of digital and affiliate distribution. He helped usher in the streaming era as one of the key execs behind Hulu’s launch in 2007 as a joint venture with Fox, later serving for several years on the streamer’s board.

Company insiders describe a series of conversations between Perrette and Ellison over the past several weeks, a period when he gradually gained the confidence of the new Skydance boss and his co-CEO, Ynon Kreiz. “He is often the one asking the best questions in the room and has the most comprehensive view,” one former colleague said. Another person from the Paramount orbit said the execs had a “mind-meld” encompassing the future capabilities of streaming services in the AI age.

Perrette also has experience with the blocking and tackling of things like password sharing and other lucrative but detail-oriented operational tasks. Paramount board member and major Skydance investor Gerry Cardinale last week noted that efforts to merge the back ends and tech stacks of Paramount+, Pluto and BET+ have borne fruit. “We’ve already done a hell of a job,” he said. “Then we are going to do the same thing when we bring the HBO universe into this.”

A high-level streaming executive at another company noted that the move could save hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses at a time when Skydance will be eager to deliver on its promise of saving at least $6 billion in costs. “JB is good casting for that kind of thing because he’s willing to get into the weeds on it,” the person said.

While the fundamentals of streaming technology are familiar to Perrette, advertising and distribution may be a bit less so. “There was a lot of confusion when that popped up in the release because it doesn’t seem like he has a very extensive background in that,” one insider noted of the official announcement. As the former Paramount and WBD come together, there are some unanswered questions about the hierarchy of ad sales in particular, with both companies having recently gone through leadership changes. More details about the second level of top execs will be revealed in the coming days.

On second thought, noted one source, “what we took for granted all those years at the upfronts is up for grabs. Ellison is trying to turn it into a tech company. What will advertising even look like in that kind of environment?”