Actor John Leguizamo has played a lot of villainous characters throughout his career, with his most recent being Scrooge in Violent Night, but of all the villains he’s gotten to play, he recently reflected on how his favorite is Clown from 1997’s Spawn. Between the overall tone of the film and its heightened reality, as well as the fact that Leguizamo underwent heavy prosthetics to bring comic-book proportions to life, the actor recalled how challenging and freeing it was to embrace the character and push the figure to extremes. Fans can see Leguizamo’s Scrooge in Violent Night, out now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.
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When asked by ComicBook.com about which of the villains he’s played in his career is his favorite, Leguizamo confessed, “I gotta say Clown, for some reason, because of the level of difficulty. I really wanted to make the comic book character come to life and it was really difficult, but really fun, and I got to ad-lib a lot and make up all these lines. Mark Dippรฉ, the director, and Todd McFarlane, I love him, and he gave me the leeway to do whatever I wanted and I did whatever I wanted and I had a blast. It was so freeing to be that villainous and that crazy and ridiculous and, I don’t know, I pushed it to the max.”
With that Spawn film coming at a time when the landscape of comic book movies was a bit more complicated, the 1997 film fell flat with audiences and critics, but Leguizamo’s connection to McFarlane persisted, as he detailed, “He published my first comic book, PhenomX, and he drew the first cover. That’s my boy. Coolest dude ever, most talented.”
Thanks to the surge in comic book movies over the last decade, a new Spawn movie is in the works, and while Leguizamo isn’t interested in reprising his role of Clown, he’d still be open to making some sort of appearance in that project.ย
“I don’t know if I can play Clown again, if lightning strikes twice like that … But I’d love to do a cameo again somehow,” the actor confessed.
Stay tuned for details on the new Spawn. You can check out Leguizamo now in Violent Night, which is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.
What did you think of Leguizamo in Spawn? Let us know in the comments!
