John Leguizamo turned down Mr. And Mrs. Smith because he felt "dissed" about pay
"They were paying [Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt] $20 million and they were going to pay me scale. I felt dissed, and they probably weren’t dissing me."
John Leguizamo is not a guy who bothers trying to hide his frequently blunt, occasionally caustic feelings about Hollywood: He’s talked in the past—and then again recently—about his lingering anger over being used as a “pawn” to get Michael Keaton to play the Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming. (Noting in a recent interview that “another actor would’ve sued” over having the meaty part pulled away from him after lengthy negotiations, allegedly as a negotiating tactic to get Keaton to take the job.) He doesn’t reserve that sharp honesty for others, either, recently kicking himself for turning down a role in 2005's Mr. And Mrs. Smith because he felt “dissed” about pay.
This is part of a longer conversation that Leguizamo had with Business Insider this week, covering large portions of his legendary career. That includes roles he’s still mad at himself for turning down, including the part played by Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada, the role that ultimately went to Robin Williams in animated comedy Happy Feet—“I had done Ice Age. I was going, “I don’t want to be doing all these ice movies’”—and most especially the part that Vince Vaughn played in Smith. Leguizamo says he turned down the role because he learned he’d be working for scale, while Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie would both be making seven figures:
They were paying them $20 million and they were going to pay me scale. I felt dissed, and they probably weren’t dissing me, but I felt dissed. Sometimes when you’re a person of color, you’re so used to being dissed that you think you’re being dissed, and sometimes you’re not being dissed. So that’s what happens, and you have to go to a lot of therapy to fix that.
Among other interesting bits from the interview: Leguizamo also genuinely loves the character of Sid the sloth from the Ice Age movies, citing it as one of the three most important roles of his career—“We created this innocent, naive, beautiful soul”—and that anyone hoping to lure him back to comic book work had better have a juicy part ready: “I would if I was offered The Riddler or some part like that.”