John Leguizamo says he was able to patch things up with his To Wong Foo co-star Patrick Swayze prior to the latter’s death in 2009.
The actors starred alongside Wesley Snipes in the 1995 drag queen comedy “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,” but had a major falling out during filming, leading to some long-held beef.
While celebrating the movie’s 30th anniversary in September, Leguizamo revealed that he and Swayze were able to bury the hatchet before his passing – “through letters and publicists,” which he referred to as “the polite way of doing it.”
“We were never in the same location, so that was kind of difficult. … It would’ve been better in person, obviously,” Leguizamo told People.
In retrospect, the Spic-O-Rama star took some accountability for feud and admitted that he’s sometimes “not the most mature person in the room.”
“Sometimes I hold grudges,” he said. “I’m going to keep going to therapy and someday I’ll fix all this.”
Leguizamo previously addressed the beef during an appearance on Andy Cohen’s radio show last year, saying Swayze “couldn’t keep up with” his deviations from the script, which would “make him mad and upset sometimes.”
“He’d be like, ‘Are you gonna say a line like that?’ I’d go, ‘You know me. I’m gonna do me. I’m gonna just keep making up lines,'” he recalled. “He goes, ‘Well, can you just say the line the way it is?’ I go, ‘I can’t.'”
The Emmy winner also elaborated on their disagreements in his 2007 memoir, saying he and Swayze nearly got into a physical altercation on the set of the film.
Leguizamo said his ad-libbing of the script may have angered his co-stars and crew, but ultimately improved his character of Chi-Chi Rodriguez.
Swayze, who played fellow drag queen Vida Boheme, died at age 57 after a 22-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
A cult classic, To Wong Foo follows three drag queens who embark on a cross-country road trip on their way to a Hollywood beauty contest, until their car breaks down in Nebraska. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
