Writer Dennis Hensley (The Screening Party) interviewed the talented John Leguizamo for The Advocate recently to ask about his forthcoming memior "Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and all the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: A Life." Big chunks of the interview didn't make it into print due to space limitations so Hensley posted it in its entirety on his terrific blog, Driven to Distraction.
Here are some highlights:

DENNIS HENSLEY: Your book’s very honest. Did you struggle with how much to reveal?

JOHN LEGUIZAMO: When you’re writing at home, you’re like, “I’m going to tell the truth.� Then, when you start letting it out of your hands, the panic hits. Still, I hope people get some laughs out of it and that they can understand me in a deeper way and not just in an “E! True Hollywood Story� kind of cheesy, sleazy way.

DH: Gay audiences got their first big dose of you as ChiChi Rodriguez in Too Wong Fu Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar. You claim your eyebrows haven’t been the same since.

JL: I used to have thick eyebrows. Now, they’re hyphens. If you look at Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes you’ll see that their eyebrows are weirdly thin on both ends.

DH: You shot that film in the tiny town of Loma, Nebraska. Did you encounter any homophobia?

JL: No, they welcomed us. I’m a Latin man so when I travel across America, I’ll always have the Deliverance radar that somebody is going to come at me. But they saw all this going on and they wanted to be a part of it.

DH: You turned down the part of Tom Hanks’ boyfriend in Philadelphia, which Antonio Banderas ended up playing. Why?

JL: Because it wasn’t funny. I really wanted to do funny things back then and it wasn’t like this show-off part. There was no flash. It was just the beautiful lover and that was it.

DH: Have attitudes in Hollywood changed since you were starting out when it comes to playing gay?

JL: Actors always want to play gay. Not leads, usually, but everybody else does because it’s always the most interesting part. It’s either the part that will get the most laughter or the most pathos. It’s always the best part.

DH: You recently played a gay man reuniting with his old school friends in The Groomsmen. Did you base your character on people you know?

JL: Yeah, I did. I heard my character got huge applause at the San Francisco Gay Film Festival. People said that I didn’t portray him as mincing. I didn’t want to do any of the stereotypes -- the fashion sense and witty quips. I wanted him to be like a regular dude, like some people that I know. And he had the issues with his father, which was pretty interesting to me, for obvious reasons.