John Leguizamo expressed a positive shift in his attitude toward the 2024 Emmy nominees during Sunday night’s ceremony, noting that he is “almost happy and certainly less angry” with the selections. While on stage, the Emmy-winning actor highlighted his role in Hollywood as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. “I’m one of Hollywood’s DEI hires.
That’s right, DEI. The ‘D’ is for diligence, the ‘E’ is for excellence, the ‘I’ is for imagination. And everyone in this room tonight has dedicated their lives to diligence, excellence and imagination, so we are all DEI hires.
What a beautiful diverse group this is tonight,” Leguizamo said. John Oliver lets out expletive as he's cut off during Emmys acceptance speech D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai's Emmy's facial red handprint look has hidden meaning Reflecting on his youth in Queens, New York , Leguizamo shared his early realization that representation in acting was a distant dream. “At 15, I didn’t know the word representation.
.. but I saw a lot of brown face,” he said, citing examples of non-Latin actors in Latin roles, including Marlon Brando as a Mexican, Al Pacino as a Cuban gangster, and Natalie Wood as the Puerto Rican character Maria in West Side Story.
“Everybody played us, except us. I didn’t see a lot of people on TV that looked like me,” Leguizamo added. He acknowledged the presence of Ricky Ricardo and the Looney Tunes characters Speedy Gonzales and Slowpoke Rodriguez a.