JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Each week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. John Leguizamo is one of the stars of Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster "The Odyssey," and he's also out with a new children's book this summer. It's called "Kiki And The Can." He spoke with Wild Card host Rachel Martin about the emotional weight of his character in "The Odyssey."
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RACHEL MARTIN: What emotion do you understand better than all the others?
JOHN LEGUIZAMO: Oh, wow. I mean, anger is easy...
MARTIN: Yeah.
LEGUIZAMO: ...Is an easy emotion for me. That's why in "The Odyssey," having a breakdown and being so vulnerable was really difficult, but it happened. Yeah, you know, I play Eumaeus, which is the most loyal character in Western literature. That's how Chris sold it to me. And I play the servant to Odysseus, Matt Damon. And I'm the first person to see him when he comes back after 10-year absence from the Trojan War.
MARTIN: Which would warrant some kind of - yeah - emotional, big response.
LEGUIZAMO: Yeah. I didn't know what was going to - I didn't know I had all these emotions. And I guess I was tapping into a lot of things that were going on, especially the evil times that we're living in. So there was lots for me to dig into to release, which I find so beautiful about my craft. Acting is such an incredible way to release all these negative feelings or emotions that are bottled up. You can let them go.
MARTIN: Had you never had a role that offered you that kind of catharsis, that kind of vulnerability, emotionally?
LEGUIZAMO: It's usually - yeah, no, not really. Most of my characters are either kind of cool or silly, or I guess men's roles don't really go to those places, usually.
MARTIN: Yeah.
LEGUIZAMO: Male leads are always cool. They're always James Bond. You know what I mean? They're Tom Cruise. They're not having emotional breakdowns. They're not crying, which is interesting because in "The Odyssey," like, the Odysseus men fall to the ground weeping...
MARTIN: Oh, yeah.
LEGUIZAMO: ...Tearing their hair. You know, men were much more - owned themselves a lot more, owned all their emotions.
MARTIN: I guess I'll ask you then how did anger become, like, an emotion that you were really familiar with?
LEGUIZAMO: I guess, growing up, my father, it was easy to come to anger. And I guess all my heroes were always - you know, Pacino is always tough...
MARTIN: Yeah.
LEGUIZAMO: ...And angry, and De Niro is always tough and angry. You know what I mean? So I guess it's just a easier emotion for men to act. I don't know.
MARTIN: It is interesting, though, that toughness always seems to come with, like - even when you were saying it, angry and tough. Like, there's...
LEGUIZAMO: Right.
MARTIN: ...An idea that if a man can be angry, then it must indicate some strength in that.
LEGUIZAMO: And virility and strength.
MARTIN: Yeah.
LEGUIZAMO: Of course. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we equate those things so easily, but to be able to walk away from a fight, to be able to say you're sorry takes a lot more courage...
MARTIN: Yeah.
LEGUIZAMO: ...Than it is to knock somebody out.
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SUMMERS: You can watch the full conversation with John Leguizamo on YouTube by searching for NPR Wild Card. His children's book, "Kiki And The Can," is out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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