Twist and Shout

John Leguizamo’s grandmother was wrong.

In his 1998 Emmy Award-winning, one-man show “Freak,” Leguizamo told audiences she was convinced Latinos wouldn’t make it into the next century because she never saw any on “Star Trek.”

But the future is here, and the Bogota-born Leguizamo just signed the biggest development deal CBS has entered into all year. He’s also returned for a second season as the narrator of Nickelodeon’s “The Brothers Garcia,” and his fourth one-man show, “John Leguizamo Live!” opens a limited engagement on Broadway in October.

“You feel rewarded for your hard work,” he says. It is Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before his performance at the Spreckels Theatre here. Dressed in black jeans and a skintight black T-shirt, Leguizamo soothes his voice by chugging honey right from the bottle. The dressing room is small and stuffy with two chairs and a collapsed plastic container of water on the floor. As he hangs up his costume for the evening, a tattoo of a large Incan warrior on his right bicep slips into his view. At 5 feet, 8 inches and 150 pounds, Leguizamo is all muscle. He’s been touring the country since June, shedding weight and a few lines from the show’s script.

“I end up tweaking it, tightening it, making it much darker,” he says, grinning.

While delivering his views on relationships and sex over the course of the two-hour show, Leguizamo dances, sings and impersonates 17 people. His next two gigs are at the Wiltern Theatre on Wednesdayand next Saturday. His shtick has always been steeped in bittersweet stories of growing up in a small New York City apartment with his brother, his Puerto Rican father and his Colombian mother.

(“We were poor,” he tells audiences this summer, “but my father was cheap. It’s the worst combo.” One Christmas, Leguizamo says, his father staged Santa Claus’ suicide so that the kids wouldn’t ask for gifts.)

For a man whose comedy was all about the hardships of his past, Leguizamo is suddenly craning his neck to look forward. He once used biographical stories to vent about the media’s inaccurate depictions of people of color. In “Freak,” his first Broadway production, which was nominated for a Tony and was shown on HBO, he told audiences that his father never cleaned the television screen because he wanted it to get good and dusty so the actors would look a little darker.

But with the CBS deal, Leguizamo at 37 is one of the highest-paid Latinos in the entertainment business. He carries the mixed blessing of getting what he wished for--and then some. He insists that a spot on CBS’ payroll and a friendship with the network’s head, Les Moonves, will not soften his outrage. Leguizamo wholly and vocally supports minority coalitions that have reprimanded network executives for not hiring more people of color.

“I’m not a politician,” Leguizamo said. “My success helps other Latin people.... My success opens up doors for other Latin people. And I will tell you what I think. I’m not going to couch it in niceties.”

According to Leguizamo, Moonves pursued a business arrangement with him for the last 10 years until he finally came through with “an offer that was really lucrative and ludicrous.”

“Les Moonves called me and said, ‘Come to the office,”’ Leguizamo recounted. “I went over, and he said, ‘I want you to be a part of this family.... I’ll let you do whatever you want. I’ll take care of you. This is your home.”’

Leguizamo accepted the offer but asked to star in a funny drama rather than a sitcom. “Sitcoms to me are vaudeville,” he said. “I felt more comfortable with something more serious where I was the crazy and funny element.”

According to the deal, he will create a 60-minute comedy-drama in which he stars as a “detective type.” The show doesn’t have a writer yet, but Leguizamo said he will have full creative control. When asked what that entails, Leguizamo admits he’s unclear on how much power he’ll wield or how much success he might have in protecting his vision.

Moonves said the comic has nothing to worry about. “Loosely speaking, we wanted to give him the option of playing a cop or a detective. A modern-day Baretta who was a master of disguises,” Moonves said. “[He’s] a guy who’s able to use voices and characters and different points of view. Not to use that piece of Leguizamo would be stupid on our part.”

For Moonves, Leguizamo has an appeal rooted in Latino culture, but not restricted to it. “He comes from the Hispanic community in Queens, New York, but he’s talking about things that everyone can relate to, whether it’s family or a relationship or having a baby for the first time.”

Moonves is determined to make sure that Leguizamo maintains his “fresh, lone” view of the world, even if he becomes a household name. Part of that view now enables him to shoot arrows at the establishment, and it’s unclear, for instance, if Leguizamo will be able to go off on riffs about white Hollywood if he gets in front of the camera week after week.

Leguizamo insists he remains an outsider in Hollywood whose close friends are not celebrities. They hold down regular jobs and try to keep their heads above water.

He also talks quite a bit about his new family. Leguizamo says none of his professional successes compare to the joy in his personal life. He beams about Justine Maurer, the woman he calls his “soul mate” and with whom he has two children, age 22 months and 8 months. “Latin twins!” Leguizamo announces with glee. The grin comes back.

Maurer is Jewish, and Leguizamo says their son and daughter are “Jewricans” who “will be able to dance and balance their own checkbooks.” Happily ensconced in an apartment in New York’s Lower East Side, Leguizamo hesitates when asked if the CBS deal could force him and his family to uproot for a life in L.A.

But there’s also a chance that Leguizamo’s development deal with CBS will not result in a prime-time show. Development deals are opportunities, not guarantees. So far, the only sure bet is himself onstage. His one-man shows have found phenomenal success, critically and professionally.

“This show is rawer, it’s nastier, warmer. The sex stuff is more raunchy,” he says, comparing it to “Freak.” “It feels really personal, like they’re in my living room and I’m telling them a story,” he said. It apparently isn’t too raw for Broadway. On Oct. 9, Leguizamo begins a limited engagement at the 1,000-seat Theatre Royale on 45th Street. It will be exactly 10 years since he staged his first one-man show, “Mambo Mouth,” off-Broadway and won an Obie and an Outer Critics Circle Award.

Leguizamo says he builds his shows around universal truths because the humor endures. Topical humor, he said, doesn’t last. When asked who his comedic influences are, he immediately offers up Richard Pryor. “Who else do I dig?” he says, tapping his foot. “Nobody talks like Chris Rock. The Wayans brothers make me laugh. Jim Carrey in his movies is hilarious. Ben Stiller too.”

Later, he mentions Lily Tomlin and Jonathan Winters. His voice sounds strained after an hour of talking, and he’s zoning out, looking at the jeans and leather jacket on the rack in front of him. Leguizamo’s voice isn’t the only delicate instrument. His knees, he said, begin to hurt him from standing, jumping and squatting on stage several times a week. It’s more physically demanding than any of the key roles he’s landed in several feature films like “Spawn,” Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam” and, most recently, “Moulin Rouge.”

On this night, the 1,460-seat theater is packed. The marquee screams his name, and the stage is set simply with a microphone stand and a stool. No one will open for Leguizamo. About 8:15 p.m., he runs on stage. The voice is crystal-clear, and the knees appear to provide more shock absorption than he needs. The crowd goes crazy, and he assures a few rowdy women in the balcony that he can always count on the cheap seats for the best laughs.

During intermission, Sarabeth Alcala, 27, sat with her boyfriend, Nelson Velazquez, talking about the show and thinking of their own families. Alcala, whose parents are Colombian and Mexican, said she realized one of the things that made her proud was seeing Leguizamo out in front, not providing backup for anyone.

“It’s striking to see him up there alone, a one-man show,” she said. “I relate to it.”

John Leguizamo, Wednesday and next Saturday at the Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. Call Ticketmaster, (213) 480-3232. Seats range from $22.50 to $42.50.