JOHN LEGUIZAMO UNMASKED ACTOR-COMEDIAN TAKES A BREAK FROM BEING THE `LATIN LON CHANEY' WITH COMPLICATED ROLES IN 2 NEW MOVIES.

Byline: Phillip Zonkel Staff Writer

John Leguizamo is taking a bite out of the silver screen.

The actor-comedian is starring in two very different films - George Romero's zombie flick ``Land of the Dead'' and Sebastian Cordero's indie film ``Cronicas.''

In ``Dead,'' he plays a mercenary evading flesh-hungry zombies. And in ``Cronicas,'' he's a relentless tabloid-TV reporter chasing a headline-grabbing story.

These roles are an acting change-of-pace for Leguizamo, who's identified with playing such characters as Tolouse-Lautrec in ``Moulin Rouge'' and the sadistic Clown in ``Spawn.''

``I'm still finding things that are exciting and challenging to me, but not in an obvious way, with the big costumes and strange body postures, not the Latin Lon Chaney route any more,'' he says.

``Land of the Dead'' is set in an undetermined time after Romero's previous zombie flicks (``Night of the Living Dead,'' ``Dawn of the Dead'' and ``Day of the Dead''), where humans have barricaded themselves in fortresslike cities. One of these is ``Fiddler's Green,'' a luxury skyscraper operated by a merciless opportunist named Kaufman (played by Dennis Hopper).

Kaufman's well-to-do clients live a pampered life; they even shop in an upscale mall, where they can pretend life hasn't changed. But down below, it's a zombie-eat-man world. The masses live in squalor and fend for themselves on city streets against flesh-hungry hoards of the undead, while the rich are supplied with goods by paramilitary mercenaries (including Leguizamo in the role of Cholo) who raid supermarkets and department stores.

This class warfare is about to get topsy-turvy as the presumably mindless zombies evolve and begin to think and plan a revolution to overthrow the city.

Zombies are nowhere to be found in ``Cronicas,'' but it does have a few moral monsters.

The village of Babahoyo, Ecuador, is besieged by an elusive serial killer. This mystery has become an obsession for Miami-based tabloid TV reporter Manolo Bonilla (Leguizamo), who has dubbed the killer the ``Monster of Babahoyo'' and is convinced this story will make him a star.

He travels to the remote village with his producer, Marisa (Leonor Watling), and cameraman (Jose Maria Yazpik) to uncover the killer's identity. Tensions in the town reach a boiling point when Vincio Cepeda (Damian Alcazar), a poor traveling salesman, accidentally runs over a child and is attacked by an angry mob.

Manolo is on the scene during the incident and interviews Cepeda and the dead boy's father. Cepeda tells Manolo he has information about the ``Monster,'' but in exchange for it, Cepeda wants Manolo to broadcast a story exposing his arrest as unjust. Manolo suspects Cepeda as the killer, but doesn't tell local authorities. He'd rather use the information to make a great story for his show.

Writer-director Cordero says Manolo and his TV crew are a metaphor on U.S. foreign policy.

``When I shot the film and was working the screenplay, there definitely was this sense going on (in my mind) where you have a country like the U.S. with its foreign policy going in too many countries - most countries in Latin America, including Ecuador and Chile - messing things up and then leaving when things get bad,'' Cordero says.

``I thought it was very fitting that these reporters have this arrogance about them where they are very removed from the situation, but they think they're very close to it,'' he says. ``They go in there and try to change things, some out of idealism and some out of self-interest, and when things don't work out, they leave.''

Leguizamo's turn as a morally bankrupt reporter is the latest role in his extensive list of acting credentials. The 40-year-old actor, who emigrated from Bogota, Colombia, at age 4 with his family and was raised in Queens, N.Y., has tackled everything from Tybalt in 1996's ``William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet'' to a strung-out crystal meth addict in 2002's ``Spun,'' in addition to his roles in ``Moulin Rouge'' (2001) and ``Spawn'' (1997).

Leguizamo also has garnered critical acclaim and audience applause away from the silver screen for his one-man comedy stage shows - 1991's ``Mambo Mouth,'' 1993's ``Spic-O-Rama'' and 1998's ``Freak.''

In a recent telephone interview from his New York home, Leguizamo talked about why he admirers Sean Penn and Jon Stewart, how he won't rush back into the director's chair anytime soon, and what happened at age 15 between him, his girlfriend, his little brother and a zipper.

Q: Manolo in ``Cronicas'' is a morally challenged person. What did you like about him?

A: I find him human. I have a problem with most movie protagonists in that they are so beyond reproach, so perfect and unblemished. I find that boring. I like these characters that are more like the '70s cinema, the anti-hero. I love that moral struggle.

Q: Is he really an anti-hero? Was he ever heroic? He seems pretty self-serving.

A: He is self-serving, but I still feel that he wants to be a hero and he really believes he can make a difference.

What I like about the film is that it's a metaphor for what's happening in the Third World and in America, where there's a lot of stuff going on and nobody rises up or speaks up. Everybody's sort of an accomplice to what's going on. People give up in apathy.

Q: What things would you like to see people be more vocal about, either in the United States or in Latin America?

A: I really respect Sean Penn for his opinions. Any entertainer who has the courage to speak out, I respect that. People don't want entertainers to speak out. We're supposed to entertain. We're childlike. So it's, ``Give us your sex videotapes.'' Give us more of that. Get drunk, act like a fool, but don't you dare have an important thought.

Q: Sebastian Cordero said one of the things he liked about your portrayal was how Manolo's accent made the character someone who's lost touch with his Hispanic heritage and was trying to assimilate himself as an American. Is that what you were trying to do?

A: Yeah. This guy was from Miami. His accent was a little generic. He was trying to be one of those newscasters who want to be everyman. They lose every trace of who they were. He was an ambitious machine, sort of like the American dream gone awry.

Q: You once said that you always want to challenge yourself and do different roles. But now you're in a new phase where you're doing work that is closer to you.

A: Now it's a different approach. It's more subtle and the differences are internal. Like Manolo - he's ambitious and tormented, but it's much more internal instead of me having to have a shaved head or thick glasses.

Q: How does playing Cholo in Romero's ``Land of the Dead'' fit into that selection?

A: The guy had a lot of struggles. He was Iago-ish (the vile character from Shakespeare's ``Othello'') in a way. He was friends to Simon Baker's character, but at the same time he was ambitious and wanted to fit in. At the same time, he was self-hating. But it was more his emotional imbalance rather than walking with a limp or having buck teeth.

Q: A lot of people remember you from your hit one-man stand-up comedy shows, ``Mambo Mouth,'' ``Spic-O-Rama'' and ``Freak.'' Do you have plans for another one-man show?

A: I have one more planned. I want to hold onto it until it's perfect. It's more about my career. I don't want to be bitchy or whiny or gossipy. I want it to have meaning and be insightful and hilarious. And I'm going to add a little Jon Stewart (the king of fake news with Comedy Central's ``The Daily Show'') to it. He's my hero right now. His show is where I'm seeing the most truth in news, and it's coming from a comedy show. It's the only news I believe.

Q: You directed the boxing movie ``Undefeated'' for HBO. Are there any plans for more directing projects?

A: I'm not eager to get in the saddle again, that's for sure. It's so hard. I enjoyed it. I like the directing part and the post-editing part, but it was hard. I have this new respect for directors. I'm very anti-authority, so I didn't want to respect them that much, but now I really do.

Q: Is it true that you once had a situation similar to Ben Stiller's character in ``There's Something About Mary'' - you were in your bedroom with a girl and your younger brother barged in and you got stuck in your zipper?

A: I was 15 (laughs). My younger brother and I shared a room, and I locked him out. He was 13. The little sucker was so persistent that he pushed the door open and knocked the dresser down that was blocking the door. He wanted to wreck my sex life because he didn't have one. I was trying to put my pants back on. It was such a rush job. I was on the floor screaming, but I was fine. It was horrible.

Q: Speaking of horrible, you've said that playing drag queen Chi-Chi Rodriguez in ``To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,'' was a physically painful experience. How bad was it?

A: It was killer. Doing that for five months. The first month was funny and hilarious, but then it got ... I had bunions. I had corns. I had corns on my bunions. The constant shaving and the rashes, it was crazy.

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