America's leading Latino scholar explains the challenge of tall women, the legend of Desi Arnaz and why Anglos look funny in a conga line.

Actor and monologist John Leguizamo's one-man show Mambo Mouth introduced New Yorkers and, later, cable and video audiences to a collection of wildly entertaining but disturbed Hispanic street characters recalled from his youth in New York City's borough of Queens. For his performance in Hangin' with the Homeboys, Leguizamo was described by one critic as a "Latino version of Brando."

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Leguizamo moved to New York at the age of five. He admits to hanging out with tough kids but claims that he was actually the goofy type. His teachers insisted on counseling and encouraged drama studies. He took the advice and got hooked on the stage, studying with Lee Strasberg, among others, and at New York University. His performance in a prize-winning student film attracted the attention of the casting director of Miami Vice. Movie roles followed and Mambo Mouth premiered at the end of 1990. He recently finished filming a thriller with Annabella Sciorra and Alan Alda, and his second one-man show, Spic-O-Rama, debuted in Chicago earlier this year.

Leguizamo's one-man shows are hardly examples of an actor mouthing off; he's a stickler for careful writing and rewriting. Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker met with him during rehearsals for Spic-O-Rama. Kalbacker recalls, "He had just finished a script review with an English tutor. One of his characters, Rafael Gigante, firmly believes that he's the love child of Laurence Olivier and has the diction, at least, to prove it. Leguizamo wanted to make sure that he'd rendered Rafael's part in perfect British English."

Q1 Playboy: You are pretty adamant about including Spanish in your show Mambo Mouth. Are you going to insist we speak Spanish now?

John Leguizamo: It should be your duty to learn Spanish. It's not arrogance. It's just that Spanish is so prevalent in countries neighboring the United States. It's a beautiful, poetic language. There's much more rhythm to it than English.

Besides, we actually outnumber white people, but we're not going to let them know that. A lot of us are illegals.

Q2 Playboy: How come your name is John, not Juan?

Leguizamo: My mom named me after her favorite movie actor, John Saxon. She thought he was a handsome man. He had black hair and dark features. I was very hurt when she told me. John Saxon? I've seen his movies. Couldn't you have made up a better story, Ma? Like you named me for John Kennedy?