John Leguizamo played Luigi in the Super Mario Bros. film, but Leguizamo himself revealed that this was the result of another role that he declined. Leguizamo revealed at a speech that was made at the Yiddish Theatre’s Immigrant Arts Summit that he turned down a role in the Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington “Philadelphia” drama, which he says had “went on to win two Academy Awards, two GLAAD media awards and two Golden Globes”. Leguizamo only turned it down so he could play Luigi in the Mario film, and says that Super Mario Bros. “won nothing except the ‘John, How Could You Be So Stupid?’ award from my wife”.
John Leguizamo Declined A Role In The “Philadelphia” Drama To Play Luigi In “Super Mario Bros”
He is still a good actor. But wow haha he made a mistake with that one. But hey, at least we can all laugh about that movie whether you love it or hate it.
Good thing I love the movie in spite of everything wrong with it.
He made a mistake being in the movie?
I don’t care what you think of the movie, but when you get to play a Mario bros in the only live-action Mario movie, you go become a Mario bros, no matter what the movie is like.
Mario Bros. was universally panned. Philadelphia critically acclaimed. Do the math.
I always thought that John Leguizamo was a terrible choice for Luigi in the Super Mario Bros. movie. He has none of Luigi’s characteristics.
Hm. I think Luigi’s deathstare in MK8 brings them closer together though
Seriously. Why is this a bad thing? I mean he declined a role for a Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington movie that had written OSCAR all over it because he had the chance to be Luigi.
Despite me not really thinking Mario Bros is necessarily bad (not like a current Transormer-movie), more like completely weird trash (which makes it at least a bit cool), at that time noone could’ve known that it would become what it became and just going for the Luigi role over everything else actually makes him the hero of this day.
I agree with the valid one. The fact he was so hyped to be Luigi is a testament to his commitment to the character. It’s just too bad the management of the movie let him down.
Hanks and Denzel… The writing was on the wall.
Unfortunately, his wife is right.
I bet he was so hopeful when he first got the part of Luigi. But the moment he got on set, his expectations went right into the shitter as he realized the guys in charge were idiotic asshats that should have NEVER been put in charge of a movie for one of the most iconic video game characters in the history of video games.
In spite of all that, I still fucking LOVE this god damn piece of shit of film history! lol
You guys do realize that Pauline, who is human; is Mario’s first girlfriend. And that Daisy is the only other non-human girlfriend of the Mario bros, besides Peach, and that if King Koopa rules over a Kingdom for 20 years, he is going to tear down the vegetation, and make a cold mecha city out of it. And Mario was always a human from Brooklyn who while working on pipes, ended up in another world filled with human looking non-humans. The movie was over 95% Canon when you go into every detail about both the movie and the video games with the video games background story. Also we millennials have always liked the movie and still do. The fact that it was rerun on American television all the time, shows that it was liked by the majority of us Americans, just like how Star Wars episode 4 & 6 use to also always be rerun all the time.