John Leguizamo has ‘PTSD’ from ‘Regarding Henry’ role

Beloved actor John Leguizamo took on the role of a convenience store robber in the 1991 film, Regarding Henry.

However, the experience was not the most pleasant, which he opened up about on the Fly on the Wall podcast with Dana Carvey and David Spade.

"You know, I was kind of humiliated by it," he admitted. "I did it because I got no jobs. There were no jobs for Latin folk. There just weren't."

On the roles that were available at the time, he recalled, "I'm not going to lie. It was like white doctor, white lawyer, white husband, white lover, Latino drug dealer.”

"They just want to see great shows, but they just weren't casting us," the actor continued. "When I got Regarding Henry, it was a drug dealer. I shoot this white guy. It was like, I'm perpetuating what they want to see, which is negative Latino images."

When asked if he was told to "Latin it up a little more”, he responded, "They didn't have to say that to me as much. I was the flavor they were looking for, like a ghetto hoodrat. I had been working against that. All my acting teachers, when I was 17, they were like, 'No one can understand you with that accent. Do you really speak that way?'”

"But there I am with my sloppy fro and I'm in the drugstore, I mean in the bodega, and there's Harrison Ford and I'm robbing the place," he remembered about the film. "Even talking about it just gives me PTSD."

John Leguizamo is now considered to be one of the most beloved actors and comedians in the industry, having worked in over 100 films. He is set to appear in one of the most highly anticipated films of 2026, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

RELATED: John Leguizamo hints at role in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’