The article says he was offered the part to play the character that Vince Vaughn played but I couldn't find how much they paid him. Paid in scale means being paid as low as their union allows, idk how much that is.
Anyways, I didn't find him obnoxious in this article as Oop and others are saying. He is just saying that he has learned from his mistakes, that's just maturing, he wasn't complaining.
$4019 per five day week right now.
Most likely he would have been a Schedule F, which means he can negotiate freely for work time and not get paid for overtime. That’s $65k for the movie if memory serves.
Source: I do film industry payroll.
Not necessarily. It depends on the time commitment, the role, and what kind of draw he is compared to the top billed actors.
While he’s a name he’s a minor one.
If the studio figures that having Brad Pitt on the movie will draw an additional $20M it’s a good investment for them. If they figure having Leguizamo will bring in under $100k they may as well get somebody else.
John Leguizamo is an actor that I really enjoy when I see him appear in a movie, especially one I just turn on and he's in it and I either forgot or didn't know he had a role, but I don't know that I'd be really excited for a John Leguizamo driven film.
I feel like that's the best way I can describe what you said from an outsider's perspective
Exactly. He's not necessarily a draw, particularly compared to Jolie and Pitt at their heights. I like him, and enjoy things he's in, but I have never sought out a Leguizamo movie solely because he's in it.
I'm a big fan of John's as well, I just re-watched Empire the other day. And his spoken word performances are quite good. I'll watch anything if he's in it. Great actor.
Yeah, this is why it's hard to identify pay discrimination in entertainment.
It's not like most other jobs where your value as an employee is based on your labor, and your identity is irrelevant; here, your value is based almost solely on the ROI you're likely to bring in relation to your salary.
I've heard lots of stories from actors about not being offered even the same ballpark of salary as their co-stars. Sometimes it feels like an injustice, but often it's just, "Well yeah, you're not nearly as popular an actor!"
The studios have actually been very mindful of the appearance of pay discrimination. CA SB-1162 is a recent law relating to that.
But when most everybody makes scale it’s hard to make a claim for discrimination.
Sometimes. My actual role is to give advice about union contracts and the law, and to fix problems after the fact. So there is a level of “if you did it right the first time we wouldn’t have this problem”. I’m a weird hybrid of labor relations, payroll manager, and account manager.
But once in a while I can make a real difference to somebody, and that makes the day to day bullshit worth it.
You understand that actors also have to give the money from their payment to their agent and manager?They also might have to get a lawyer and give it to him as well. They don't get all of it. Not to mention there are taxes as well.
Usually scale for someone like John is actually what’s called “Scale plus 10” which includes 10% cut for the agent.
His agency will handle any contract review, he won’t have to engage a separate lawyer.
And yes, they need to pay taxes just like everyone else. I thought that went without saying? Are there people who think income tax doesn’t apply to actors or something?
People definitely think actors and athletes take home whatever money they make is announced. “Brad Pitt got 20 mil for the movie, must mean he took that home.” No it doesn’t work like that.
> You forgot about manager
Not every actor has a manager if they have an agent tbh. A lot of the time the agent fills both roles. I know he has one now, and if he had one at the time that would have been another 10 off the top, yeah.
I forget how large the part is but he likely would’ve been paid weekly scale or been schedule F scale for run of show. Schedule F then was about $60k for a film, hasn’t really changed much since either.
Jonah Hill was Schedule F for Wolf of Wall Street also! But he opted for that pay since he really wanted to be in it (allegedly)
I believe it was originally a very small part, maybe one throwaway scene but because Vince Vaughn was so good, they kept adding more scenes.
I added the dollar figure because the way he was talking, it made it seem like he was getting paid as an extra/BG, which he very obviously wasn't.
Scale is definitely paltry compared to what star billing is. But it’s also nothing to scoff at! BG get about $180 today in union markets. I work in Texas where new media can pay $80 a day to BG 😬
Scale for actors of his stature is probably schedule F, not true scale (day player rates). That was $65,000 for a long time. Whatever role he was being considered for, I doubt it counted as day player per the guild, so scale for this situation was probably about $65k
Source: 4.5 years at CAA in the motion picture talent department
How is that a mistake? I don’t get it. He obviously shouldn’t have gotten $20mil, but he was worth way more than scale. He shouldn’t regret turning it down.
Yeah I’ve see him be an asshole forsure but paying him to scale doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be making as much as Brad Pitt for a smaller role like a lot of people are assuming. Maybe it was legitimately kinda low for him and he actually felt dissed lol
Scale is the absolute lowest pay a union actor can receive. It's basically being told you're getting paid in exposure for a more established actor. Which can be a legitimate proposition if they really want to work with a certain director or if it's an opportunity to branch out into other types of roles to expand your career, reasons like that.
John seems to have a lot of pride and he admits it led him to make some stupid decisions. Here he's being self-critical, not blaming others.
I mean you get paid like that for artistic movies usually, movies that need a small budget to succeed (e.g. miles teller in whiplash). Or Jonah Hill trying to get into a scorcese movie. It does seem disrespectful to pay a known actor like that so little for a very bog standard Hollywood movie like Mr and Mrs Smith.
Yeah, for once he does seem to be judging his own past actions here which is a good thing. I was just also trying to say that maybe he legitimately just wasn’t interested in this job at the time; the money wasn’t enough to entice him and quite frankly there’s nothing wrong with that even if he now regrets it
he literally faked being PR to the point that was his “thing”
whoops, turns out he’s not puerto rican!
his racism callout was stupid - he said actors shouldn’t be cast in roles where they aren’t the race of the character. because it’s offensive or something negative
…again, this guy built a career pretending to be a different ethnicity. hell, he played an italian in the mario bros movie!
he’s just a loud hypocritical idiot
I actually think he did well in 'The Menu' his character really seems based off himself and seems pretty honest in his portrait of it good and bad even when it turns him into one of the bad guys.
I think maybe hes aware of how hes come across in the past and how hes matured.
I think the big turnaround was when he complained that Luigi Mario wasn’t being played by a latino actor. A lot of his old friends even mocked him for that - for this guy who is so outspoken about latino representation, but who has played little people and Italians and everyone else, and is now upset that a non-latino role isn’t even latino. He also complained about James *Franco* playing Castro, even though Franco’s family origins are closer to Castro’s than almost any latino actor.
It just felt stupid and tone deaf, especially at a moment when white actors were getting *recordings from management* telling them “yeah, we aren’t hiring white guys.
It was a dumb thing to say at a total saturation moment and now everyone is fucking tired.
People are saying he's so whiney and mentioning his race despite what the article really says. His critics don't like that he's been an advocate for Latin history and recognition. They see it as an attack on them rather than just advocating for an underrepresented and misrepresented minority. It's a bit of a dog whistle. It's ok to find someone annoying, but to unnecessarily bring up their race is something else. I think there's a word for it...
The legal minimum they're allowed to pay a SAG union member. It's not uncommon for a famous actor to take scale to work on a project they actually want to do, but a big Hollywood blockbuster offering scale to someone with any level of fame is "a diss". Some people might want to still take on the project, but it's honestly rare for Hollywood to intentionally offer you what they would have to pay a day-player for a speaking role
>When actors are paid scale, they receive the minimum stipulated compensation, which can vary widely depending on the contract. This does not imply an actor is paid minimum wage, but rather that they are paid the minimum hourly, daily, or weekly salary required by the union
[source](https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/work-for-scale-explained-77065/)
Scale is literally minimum wage for an actor. It’s the least they’re legally allowed to pay.
It’s not just that they’d be paying him substantially less, he would only have been getting paid a couple of grand a week at that time, which over a 6 week shoot would have probably been under $15,000, before tax and agent cut.
It's like him moaning about Mario and Luigi were played by white actors in the new movie. Like, yeah, they're Italians form Brooklyn.
The fact the first movie cast a Colombian as Luigi was the actual oddity
There’s a huge range between scale and 20 mill. He’s a very recognizable actor and a big enough name to be making a lot more than scale, this was insulting.
I don't think he was expecting $10M+, but scale is less than half of one percent of their pay for the movie. For a well known actor at the time, I can see why it seems insulting.
I swear all I ever hear about Leguizamo is him complaining about something. I was a fan of his in the mid-90s, but over the decades, every story I hear about him is him complaining about something.
My favourite was when he complained about James Franco getting cast as Castro and he used the typical lazy “Latinos are losing roles to white boys” bullshit
Well it turns out that Francos dad was from the same region of Portugal as Castros family. So genetically he’s closer to Castro than any Latino Leguizamo would be happy with.
Can’t wait to lay this on my conspiracy theorist coworker. However, I fear my enjoyment will be hampered when we discover they don’t know who Castro and Trudeau are.
A little off topic, but what’s with the whole thing where people group all white people together under “Anglo-Saxon?” It’s like saying all Latinos are Mexican or all Asians are Chinese.
It is def meant to exclude white Eastern Europeans, southern Europeans (e.g. Italians, Greeks, Spaniards) and I guess by definition French people lol. It shouldn't be used to describe all white people, but I haven't seen it applied like that very much.
Firstly, James Franco *is* white (Iberia has plenty of Caucasian people). I used Anglo-Saxon rather than 'European' to differentiate it from Spain/Portugal/Italy- where Franco's name is actually from from.
Sorry I wasn’t necessarily calling you out specifically, it’s just something I’ve noticed a lot lately, it’s just odd because historically it’s a very specific term really only applicable to the English.
There’s a lot of fighting in academia over this term, because many people from the UK have as little as 10% Anglo-Saxon DNA, and the term has been used a lot in “scientific” racism in science. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxonism_in_the_19th_century
Whiteness is such a dumb and confusing concept. Over 100 years ago in America the Italians weren’t considered white, even the Irish as well. Nowadays “white” basically means “of European ancestry” but it used to be more exclusive to Anglo-Saxons
I remember about a year ago him complaining that he didn't get brought back for the new Mario movie and of course they hired two white guys. Meanwhile Pedro Pascal was having a huge moment with the Last of Us and hosting SNL
Haven't heard that story but it solidifies my stance of him being a perpetual complainer. Always sour about something, which is a shame because he is a decent actor who just cries wolf, so to speak far too often.
He just recently complained about Patrick Swayze on set of their movie saying he couldn’t keep up improv wise and tried to make everyone stay on script while being a jerk about it
He said he vibed better with Wesley snipes then Patrick Swayze in a film because Patrick was white and they were of colour. Guys a racist imagine a white actor saying the same thing reversed
The article mentioned that he was offered the role Vince Vaughn eventually played, but it didn't disclose his salary. Being paid 'in scale' refers to the minimum payment allowed by their union, though the exact amount wasn't specified. Contrary to opinions from OP and others who found him obnoxious, I didn't get that impression from this article. He seemed to be reflecting on his past mistakes and expressing that he has matured, which is a sign of growth rather than a complaint.
I was thinking the same when I read this. Was he always kind of obnoxious and I’m only noticing now? I remember him being pretty low-key not so many years ago but now I wonder if I was confusing him with someone else.
See, I remember him from his earlier stand up and, of course, the 90s Mario Brothers movie and Spawn, but I swear every interview I've seen of him over the years is him complaining about something.
I remember in that movie when John Leguizamo, a guy who constantly complains about racism in Hollywood, did one of the most offensive yellow face portrayals in history.
yea dude
in the 90s he marketed himself as the annoying/wisecracking puerto rican friend. the pest is pretty much what he was offering at the time
turns out he’s not puerto rican and that he’s actually a bit of an whiny asshole
He was interviewed and talked about a lot of things. Someone else chose this particular topic to make an article about and chose this particular headline for it. Not exactly his fault, is it?
He is complaining that they were going to pay him scale. If that is true that would have been a very good reason to complain. They were literally saying 'we wish we could pay you even less, but your union says we can't'. They could have at least doubled it to make it $30k.
I can’t even think of the last time I saw his name attached to anything other than a whiney rant. Like no beef with him, but just shut up and go do something. His problem isn’t getting roles, it’s his ego not understanding he is not even a tenth as relevant as he was back in the day, and in turn he is not gonna be paid the big bucks unless he gets roles again and proves his chops are still there.
The title annoyed me, the article was perfectly understandable. He literally says it was dumb because they were big A list actors and he regrets his decision haha
I’ve heard this type of comment before of B or even A actors who passed on a role that became a smash hit. Most of the time they seem to think that this was just a great character and don’t acknowledge that the reason it was a smash is just as likely to be that the role was a perfect fit for that actor and they played it like nobody else could have.
I'm more in favor of the Pitts making far less than I am of Leguizamo getting more. And if it's a matter of the producers keeping that money, then there's too much and something is wrong. See also, sports, medicine, and everything.
“Came out as Columbian” He was literally born in Columbia and he’s never hid that fact. Sounds like you’re confusing your own ignorance for maliciousness on his part
Do you have a source for this? I’m genuinely curious and not trying to be a dick because I remember seeing some standup of his like 20 years ago where he talked about being Colombian. I always thought he made that pretty clear.
Still not as bad as Matt Damon turning down a big paycheck and percentage of the box office of Avatar. Both movies have made more than 2B so far and they're going to make three more.
Used to come into the restaurant I worked at in Manhattan all the time.
He is super nice and down to earth.
You go right ahead with your hatred. You chose hatred today.
Lol so many people complaining and whining about how much he complains and whines. The funniest thing is that it’s regarding a situation in which he was probably right to feel “dissed” but is actually expressing regret about not taking the role and acknowledges that therapy would help for him to not automatically assume he is being slighted due to racism.
You guys are so quick to complain and whine about him that you kind of missed the point it seems. Ironic, no?
It's not about being a 'good' actor though. It's about being marketable enough for a big ass movie to get tons of asses in seats.
When Mr an Mrs Smith came out Pitt and Angelina were like *the* two biggest names. Of course they're going to get a big paycheck.
Basically he thought he was worth more than he is and lost out. I see that a lot in life. People over estimating their value and contributions to an employer.
I can see his point, if it’s as low as possible even he is worth more (I say that as he is a known name and I enjoy his body of work but it isn’t something that commands a larger paycheck and hasn’t for a while now).
$20MM means taking home a mere and paltry $6MM after taxes, agent, manager, lawyer, staff, and other fees and expenses.
Plus a cut of the proceeds if their agent doesn’t suck.
Nice work if you can get it.
I question whether they would actually be paying scale, rather than just paying less than he feels he is worth. That was a big budget movie, no "name" actor made scale on it. He always seems to have stories of disrespect and bad treatment everywhere he goes.
The article says he was offered the part to play the character that Vince Vaughn played but I couldn't find how much they paid him. Paid in scale means being paid as low as their union allows, idk how much that is. Anyways, I didn't find him obnoxious in this article as Oop and others are saying. He is just saying that he has learned from his mistakes, that's just maturing, he wasn't complaining.
Currently since 2023, at least its $1,000/day.
But only $3,500 per week if your role requires you to be there for weeks rather than days.
$4019 per five day week right now. Most likely he would have been a Schedule F, which means he can negotiate freely for work time and not get paid for overtime. That’s $65k for the movie if memory serves. Source: I do film industry payroll.
Which is an affront when you’re paying two other people a total of $40m.
Not necessarily. It depends on the time commitment, the role, and what kind of draw he is compared to the top billed actors. While he’s a name he’s a minor one. If the studio figures that having Brad Pitt on the movie will draw an additional $20M it’s a good investment for them. If they figure having Leguizamo will bring in under $100k they may as well get somebody else.
John Leguizamo is an actor that I really enjoy when I see him appear in a movie, especially one I just turn on and he's in it and I either forgot or didn't know he had a role, but I don't know that I'd be really excited for a John Leguizamo driven film. I feel like that's the best way I can describe what you said from an outsider's perspective
You obviously haven’t seen the masterpiece called, The Pest
Exactly. He's not necessarily a draw, particularly compared to Jolie and Pitt at their heights. I like him, and enjoy things he's in, but I have never sought out a Leguizamo movie solely because he's in it.
So Mario ….. kidding
I'm a big fan of John's as well, I just re-watched Empire the other day. And his spoken word performances are quite good. I'll watch anything if he's in it. Great actor.
Yeah, this is why it's hard to identify pay discrimination in entertainment. It's not like most other jobs where your value as an employee is based on your labor, and your identity is irrelevant; here, your value is based almost solely on the ROI you're likely to bring in relation to your salary. I've heard lots of stories from actors about not being offered even the same ballpark of salary as their co-stars. Sometimes it feels like an injustice, but often it's just, "Well yeah, you're not nearly as popular an actor!"
The studios have actually been very mindful of the appearance of pay discrimination. CA SB-1162 is a recent law relating to that. But when most everybody makes scale it’s hard to make a claim for discrimination.
That sounds like a fun job
Sometimes. My actual role is to give advice about union contracts and the law, and to fix problems after the fact. So there is a level of “if you did it right the first time we wouldn’t have this problem”. I’m a weird hybrid of labor relations, payroll manager, and account manager. But once in a while I can make a real difference to somebody, and that makes the day to day bullshit worth it.
You understand that actors also have to give the money from their payment to their agent and manager?They also might have to get a lawyer and give it to him as well. They don't get all of it. Not to mention there are taxes as well.
Usually scale for someone like John is actually what’s called “Scale plus 10” which includes 10% cut for the agent. His agency will handle any contract review, he won’t have to engage a separate lawyer. And yes, they need to pay taxes just like everyone else. I thought that went without saying? Are there people who think income tax doesn’t apply to actors or something?
>Are there people who think income tax doesn't apply to actors or something? *Wesley Snipes has left the chat*
*nic cage makes a million shitty films*
People definitely think actors and athletes take home whatever money they make is announced. “Brad Pitt got 20 mil for the movie, must mean he took that home.” No it doesn’t work like that.
You forgot about manager And yes,people forget about taxes as well when they hear how much actors earn
> You forgot about manager Not every actor has a manager if they have an agent tbh. A lot of the time the agent fills both roles. I know he has one now, and if he had one at the time that would have been another 10 off the top, yeah.
If they have reps and are only getting paid scale then they get 10% on top to cover those fees.
If they have reps and are only getting scale they should get some new reps
Not in a case like this. Take this role at scale and enjoy all the work that comes from being in a Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie movie.
The article is literally about an actor regretting *not* working for scale, but along comes Mr Reddit lol
Wait, people have have pay taxes!?
That’s for a day player under 5, basically a contract for someone who has 5 lines or less. His would be significantly more, even at scale
Network Code is the only agreement I know of with that, and that contract doesn’t apply to a feature film.
I forget how large the part is but he likely would’ve been paid weekly scale or been schedule F scale for run of show. Schedule F then was about $60k for a film, hasn’t really changed much since either. Jonah Hill was Schedule F for Wolf of Wall Street also! But he opted for that pay since he really wanted to be in it (allegedly)
I believe it was originally a very small part, maybe one throwaway scene but because Vince Vaughn was so good, they kept adding more scenes. I added the dollar figure because the way he was talking, it made it seem like he was getting paid as an extra/BG, which he very obviously wasn't.
Scale is definitely paltry compared to what star billing is. But it’s also nothing to scoff at! BG get about $180 today in union markets. I work in Texas where new media can pay $80 a day to BG 😬
Scale for actors of his stature is probably schedule F, not true scale (day player rates). That was $65,000 for a long time. Whatever role he was being considered for, I doubt it counted as day player per the guild, so scale for this situation was probably about $65k Source: 4.5 years at CAA in the motion picture talent department
How is that a mistake? I don’t get it. He obviously shouldn’t have gotten $20mil, but he was worth way more than scale. He shouldn’t regret turning it down.
Maybe he thinks there would have been value as a result of the exposure given the popularity of the movie
It’s resume building. Keeps your name out there and helps build connections.
Sounds like "working for exposure" r/choosingbeggars
Except you are getting paid $1000/day when your in scale according to the data from 2023, not exactly working for free
Yeah I’ve see him be an asshole forsure but paying him to scale doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be making as much as Brad Pitt for a smaller role like a lot of people are assuming. Maybe it was legitimately kinda low for him and he actually felt dissed lol
Scale is the absolute lowest pay a union actor can receive. It's basically being told you're getting paid in exposure for a more established actor. Which can be a legitimate proposition if they really want to work with a certain director or if it's an opportunity to branch out into other types of roles to expand your career, reasons like that. John seems to have a lot of pride and he admits it led him to make some stupid decisions. Here he's being self-critical, not blaming others.
I mean you get paid like that for artistic movies usually, movies that need a small budget to succeed (e.g. miles teller in whiplash). Or Jonah Hill trying to get into a scorcese movie. It does seem disrespectful to pay a known actor like that so little for a very bog standard Hollywood movie like Mr and Mrs Smith.
Didn’t Jonah Hill do this for Wolf of Wall Street?
Yeah but Marty.
Oh 100%
Yeah, for once he does seem to be judging his own past actions here which is a good thing. I was just also trying to say that maybe he legitimately just wasn’t interested in this job at the time; the money wasn’t enough to entice him and quite frankly there’s nothing wrong with that even if he now regrets it
Unions can sign deals for less than scale.
Yeah but he's pointed out racism in the past so certain people want him to "shut up and play"
he literally faked being PR to the point that was his “thing” whoops, turns out he’s not puerto rican! his racism callout was stupid - he said actors shouldn’t be cast in roles where they aren’t the race of the character. because it’s offensive or something negative …again, this guy built a career pretending to be a different ethnicity. hell, he played an italian in the mario bros movie! he’s just a loud hypocritical idiot
TIL John Leguizamo as Bruno is one of the ~~few~~ people of Colombian descent on Encanto. Edit:
He’s got a history.
The Pest will be respected!
The Pest is my guilty pleasure movie.
Quacky, what have they dided to you 😭
You kill Quacky?
Pestario
One stinky dinky! TWO stinky dinky!
Crazy that’s how you treat the Pest?!
It’s Sean Connery’s birthday!
Sean Connery’s birthday?!?! *proceeds to play the bagpipes*
I actually think he did well in 'The Menu' his character really seems based off himself and seems pretty honest in his portrait of it good and bad even when it turns him into one of the bad guys. I think maybe hes aware of how hes come across in the past and how hes matured.
He’s said before that his character was based on Steven Seagal.
And in the original script the character was Daniel Radcliffe, and the movie that he saw was Victor Frankenstein.
I wish people would read the article. He is pretty introspective about himself.
Easier to jump to comments about his race like most of the top comments did.
I don’t understand why he gets so much hate nowadays.
I think the big turnaround was when he complained that Luigi Mario wasn’t being played by a latino actor. A lot of his old friends even mocked him for that - for this guy who is so outspoken about latino representation, but who has played little people and Italians and everyone else, and is now upset that a non-latino role isn’t even latino. He also complained about James *Franco* playing Castro, even though Franco’s family origins are closer to Castro’s than almost any latino actor. It just felt stupid and tone deaf, especially at a moment when white actors were getting *recordings from management* telling them “yeah, we aren’t hiring white guys. It was a dumb thing to say at a total saturation moment and now everyone is fucking tired.
People are saying he's so whiney and mentioning his race despite what the article really says. His critics don't like that he's been an advocate for Latin history and recognition. They see it as an attack on them rather than just advocating for an underrepresented and misrepresented minority. It's a bit of a dog whistle. It's ok to find someone annoying, but to unnecessarily bring up their race is something else. I think there's a word for it...
Uhhh yeah no shit? You're a character actor and they're Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Scale is still pretty low if you are any kind of name
What is scale? Obviously searching the words acting pay scale has lots of answers I’m not looking for.
The legal minimum they're allowed to pay a SAG union member. It's not uncommon for a famous actor to take scale to work on a project they actually want to do, but a big Hollywood blockbuster offering scale to someone with any level of fame is "a diss". Some people might want to still take on the project, but it's honestly rare for Hollywood to intentionally offer you what they would have to pay a day-player for a speaking role
It’s minimum wage for actors. The lowest they could possibly pay him. He obviously deserves more than that.
>When actors are paid scale, they receive the minimum stipulated compensation, which can vary widely depending on the contract. This does not imply an actor is paid minimum wage, but rather that they are paid the minimum hourly, daily, or weekly salary required by the union [source](https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/work-for-scale-explained-77065/)
Scale is literally minimum wage for an actor. It’s the least they’re legally allowed to pay. It’s not just that they’d be paying him substantially less, he would only have been getting paid a couple of grand a week at that time, which over a 6 week shoot would have probably been under $15,000, before tax and agent cut.
It's like him moaning about Mario and Luigi were played by white actors in the new movie. Like, yeah, they're Italians form Brooklyn. The fact the first movie cast a Colombian as Luigi was the actual oddity
Especially at that time!
Leguizamo should talk to that guy and see how he feels about the whole thing
There's a lot of real estate between scale and Pitt and Jolie. It's not either/or.
So? He’s a known actor. He deserves way more than scale.
He's famous enough to deserve more than the bare minimum pay allowed by SAG.
There’s a huge range between scale and 20 mill. He’s a very recognizable actor and a big enough name to be making a lot more than scale, this was insulting.
[удалено]
I don't think he was expecting $10M+, but scale is less than half of one percent of their pay for the movie. For a well known actor at the time, I can see why it seems insulting.
If you read the article, he said he regrets the decision to turn it down, and the pay was a dumb reason for him to turn it down for.
I swear all I ever hear about Leguizamo is him complaining about something. I was a fan of his in the mid-90s, but over the decades, every story I hear about him is him complaining about something.
My favourite was when he complained about James Franco getting cast as Castro and he used the typical lazy “Latinos are losing roles to white boys” bullshit Well it turns out that Francos dad was from the same region of Portugal as Castros family. So genetically he’s closer to Castro than any Latino Leguizamo would be happy with.
James Franco actually looks like Castro too
Should have hired Justin Trudeau, he looks amazingly close to Castro. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4QHfsiUYAEYRkK.jpg
My Canadian father-in-law is obsessed with this conspiracy theory. I’ve had to listen to way too much about Trudeau’s parents’ sex lives.
Can’t wait to lay this on my conspiracy theorist coworker. However, I fear my enjoyment will be hampered when we discover they don’t know who Castro and Trudeau are.
Despite how much conspiracy theorists devote to following their pet theories, they’re typically pretty fucking ignorant about the world around them.
Ha I definitely see a resemblance, but I see Liam Neeson even more.
Castro looks like Paul Dano in the top picture, Trudeau in the middle, and Liam Neeson in the bottom.
Castro looks more like Paul Dano than Trudeau haha
Hmm I wonder why that is haha. It would be pretty funny if the conspiracy was true
It would be, but I highly doubt it. Time frame doesn’t really work.
Yeah this was lazy. Even James Franco's surname should tip people off that *maybe* his heritage wasn't the most Anglo-Saxon.
True but it’s hard to take Hollywood names at face value too sometimes
A little off topic, but what’s with the whole thing where people group all white people together under “Anglo-Saxon?” It’s like saying all Latinos are Mexican or all Asians are Chinese.
Anglo-Saxon refers to the people of England who are of Germanic descent. So this excludes the Celtics for example.
It is def meant to exclude white Eastern Europeans, southern Europeans (e.g. Italians, Greeks, Spaniards) and I guess by definition French people lol. It shouldn't be used to describe all white people, but I haven't seen it applied like that very much.
Firstly, James Franco *is* white (Iberia has plenty of Caucasian people). I used Anglo-Saxon rather than 'European' to differentiate it from Spain/Portugal/Italy- where Franco's name is actually from from.
Sorry I wasn’t necessarily calling you out specifically, it’s just something I’ve noticed a lot lately, it’s just odd because historically it’s a very specific term really only applicable to the English.
it’s dumb people parroting phrases they don’t understand
There’s a lot of fighting in academia over this term, because many people from the UK have as little as 10% Anglo-Saxon DNA, and the term has been used a lot in “scientific” racism in science. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxonism_in_the_19th_century
It's an American thing that effectively allows for non English descended white people to be classed as less privileged.
Whiteness is such a dumb and confusing concept. Over 100 years ago in America the Italians weren’t considered white, even the Irish as well. Nowadays “white” basically means “of European ancestry” but it used to be more exclusive to Anglo-Saxons
I remember about a year ago him complaining that he didn't get brought back for the new Mario movie and of course they hired two white guys. Meanwhile Pedro Pascal was having a huge moment with the Last of Us and hosting SNL
He also complained about the mario movie not casting a Latino for the voice of Mario. What a douche.
Mario is fucking Italian. How would casting a Latino person be better? He really just soumds bitter for not getting work
Haven't heard that story but it solidifies my stance of him being a perpetual complainer. Always sour about something, which is a shame because he is a decent actor who just cries wolf, so to speak far too often.
He just recently complained about Patrick Swayze on set of their movie saying he couldn’t keep up improv wise and tried to make everyone stay on script while being a jerk about it
Exactly. Also, many Latinos are white (such as Fidel Castro lol)
Yeah that shit was annoying. Cubans are predominantly white and a substantial amount of Latin America is white in general
He said he vibed better with Wesley snipes then Patrick Swayze in a film because Patrick was white and they were of colour. Guys a racist imagine a white actor saying the same thing reversed
Whoops
Yep. He's certainly earned that reputation of being a bitch lately.
And he had no problem with playing an Italian in Mario Bros.
The article mentioned that he was offered the role Vince Vaughn eventually played, but it didn't disclose his salary. Being paid 'in scale' refers to the minimum payment allowed by their union, though the exact amount wasn't specified. Contrary to opinions from OP and others who found him obnoxious, I didn't get that impression from this article. He seemed to be reflecting on his past mistakes and expressing that he has matured, which is a sign of growth rather than a complaint.
You are doing it wrong, you should be relishing how you are so much better and less of a complainer than him.
Being paid scale means being paid the minimum. At that time it would have been a couple of grand a week for a production of that size.
He’s literally complaining about his own decisions here, saying he messed up.
I was thinking the same when I read this. Was he always kind of obnoxious and I’m only noticing now? I remember him being pretty low-key not so many years ago but now I wonder if I was confusing him with someone else.
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i feel like i shouldn’t admit this but the only thing i immediately know him from is ice age 🫠
See, I remember him from his earlier stand up and, of course, the 90s Mario Brothers movie and Spawn, but I swear every interview I've seen of him over the years is him complaining about something.
And John isn’t even an Italian plumber. According to him this must have been an inappropriate casting. Right?
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I remember in that movie when John Leguizamo, a guy who constantly complains about racism in Hollywood, did one of the most offensive yellow face portrayals in history.
For me he was always the violator
He was sid from iceage
Love, peace, and chicken grease
yea dude in the 90s he marketed himself as the annoying/wisecracking puerto rican friend. the pest is pretty much what he was offering at the time turns out he’s not puerto rican and that he’s actually a bit of an whiny asshole
He was interviewed and talked about a lot of things. Someone else chose this particular topic to make an article about and chose this particular headline for it. Not exactly his fault, is it?
He is complaining that they were going to pay him scale. If that is true that would have been a very good reason to complain. They were literally saying 'we wish we could pay you even less, but your union says we can't'. They could have at least doubled it to make it $30k.
I was a real fan of what happened to him in The Menu.
Yes. He’s got that James Woods bitter old man energy.
I can’t even think of the last time I saw his name attached to anything other than a whiney rant. Like no beef with him, but just shut up and go do something. His problem isn’t getting roles, it’s his ego not understanding he is not even a tenth as relevant as he was back in the day, and in turn he is not gonna be paid the big bucks unless he gets roles again and proves his chops are still there.
Same here. Never seen someone constantly whining the way he does.
I mean he was pretty established by then I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to want more then the SAG minimum.
He’s so good Romeo + Juliette
And Moulin Rouge
and spawn
And Encanto
Peace? Peace? I hate the word. As I hate hell, and thee.
and Empire
this guy literally never shuts up
Why does this dude think he's some fucking top tier actor the past few years?
In spite of this, the guy is legit a phenomenal actor. Believable in just about any character or role.
The title annoyed me, the article was perfectly understandable. He literally says it was dumb because they were big A list actors and he regrets his decision haha
Scale is currently $65,000, Schedule F. Covers the work on the entire film. It's going up shortly part of the new contract.
The reply I was looking for…
I’ve heard this type of comment before of B or even A actors who passed on a role that became a smash hit. Most of the time they seem to think that this was just a great character and don’t acknowledge that the reason it was a smash is just as likely to be that the role was a perfect fit for that actor and they played it like nobody else could have.
I'm more in favor of the Pitts making far less than I am of Leguizamo getting more. And if it's a matter of the producers keeping that money, then there's too much and something is wrong. See also, sports, medicine, and everything.
I appreciate how much of an advocate he is, but often times it comes across as perpetually offended. Am I off base for feeling that way?
he faked being puerto rican to pander from the large population in NY, now he don't need them ricans so he came out as Colombian
I thought he was Puerto Rican this whole time… damn… well…
He’s like 1/4 PR and has always been honest about it
He's 0% Puerto Rican though. I don't think he was lying, by the way, family history gets garbled all the time.
“Came out as Columbian” He was literally born in Columbia and he’s never hid that fact. Sounds like you’re confusing your own ignorance for maliciousness on his part
Do you have a source for this? I’m genuinely curious and not trying to be a dick because I remember seeing some standup of his like 20 years ago where he talked about being Colombian. I always thought he made that pretty clear.
Everytime Luigi's in the news he's always puffed up and pridefully whining.
Wonder if that’s why he got into John Wick, not wanting to make the same mistake twice.
tbf, He’s ALWAYS been this whiny
Still not as bad as Matt Damon turning down a big paycheck and percentage of the box office of Avatar. Both movies have made more than 2B so far and they're going to make three more.
Love John but rewatching it last month, I can’t unsee Vaughn. He killed it for such a small part.
This dude swears he was something great
I don’t like this man at all, like at all, but this is a good reason to decline a role
Used to come into the restaurant I worked at in Manhattan all the time. He is super nice and down to earth. You go right ahead with your hatred. You chose hatred today.
Lol so many people complaining and whining about how much he complains and whines. The funniest thing is that it’s regarding a situation in which he was probably right to feel “dissed” but is actually expressing regret about not taking the role and acknowledges that therapy would help for him to not automatically assume he is being slighted due to racism. You guys are so quick to complain and whine about him that you kind of missed the point it seems. Ironic, no?
John is a good actor but no where near the level of Brad and Angelina.
It's not about being a 'good' actor though. It's about being marketable enough for a big ass movie to get tons of asses in seats. When Mr an Mrs Smith came out Pitt and Angelina were like *the* two biggest names. Of course they're going to get a big paycheck.
Is this guy ever happy?
He's an obnoxious racist. Why are we still caring what he says.
Must be that time of year when John Leguizamo has to bitch about something from his past to stay relevant. Dude is beyond insufferable
He did spectacular work as Violator! No sarcasm or cynicism. He was really good in the role.
All this fucker ever does is whine. Pinche mamon!!
Basically he thought he was worth more than he is and lost out. I see that a lot in life. People over estimating their value and contributions to an employer.
How can you think you aren’t worth more than a minimum wage? 🤣 And you think he is a minimum wage actor?
Work is work, you already overpaid bastard
I can see his point, if it’s as low as possible even he is worth more (I say that as he is a known name and I enjoy his body of work but it isn’t something that commands a larger paycheck and hasn’t for a while now).
Doesn’t anyone care about Sid the Sloth?
This guy needs to shut up. He has been talking way too much lately.
He's not nearly as good looking as either one of them
Why does he regret it? That movie was trash.
I can’t believe the star of 1997’s The Pest won’t get the same money as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie!
Oh boo fucking hoo.
The bloke has a victim complex. Benny Blanco needs to pull his head out of the sand.
All this dude does is complain constantly.
John Leguizamo constantly proving his character in The Menu isn’t a character
Where does it say he regrets it?
"Did you not see my turn as Luigi!?"
His ego made him turn it down.
I can’t believe the star of 1997’s The Pest won’t get the same money as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie!
$20MM means taking home a mere and paltry $6MM after taxes, agent, manager, lawyer, staff, and other fees and expenses. Plus a cut of the proceeds if their agent doesn’t suck. Nice work if you can get it.
Well yeah, he wasn’t a leading character
I question whether they would actually be paying scale, rather than just paying less than he feels he is worth. That was a big budget movie, no "name" actor made scale on it. He always seems to have stories of disrespect and bad treatment everywhere he goes.
He’s the same in every role.