John Leguizamo Goes To Great Lengths To Win Pablo Escobar Role

John Leguizamo really wanted to play Pablo Escobar. I mean, he really wanted the part. So when producers told him that he wasn’t a good fit Leguizamo did the only logical thing that he could do: He spent $15,000 on a fat suit and made an audition tape.

Part 1 b test https://t.co/axBwfXt4CQ

— John Leguizamo (@JohnLeguizamo) July 3, 2013

Leguizamo was born in Colombia and believes that he was “born to play” the role of Pablo Escobar. Which is probably why he couldn’t take no for an answer. The producers reportedly told Leguizamo that he didn’t have enough international appeal to carry the movie. They were looking a serious dramatic actor Javier Bardem to play Pablo Escobar and not Leguizamo, whose most famous role is arguably a talking ground sloth in the movie Ice Age.

But Leguizamo wasn’t going to give up that easily.

The actor hatched a plan to convince the producers that he was meant to play the role. He hired a few makeup artists, bought a fat suit, and then taped an audition of himself playing Pablo Escobar. He even included footage of the real Escobar so that producers could see just how much he deserved the part.

Screen test for Escobar part 1 https://t.co/91JIIVa3Z1

— John Leguizamo (@JohnLeguizamo) July 4, 2013

But despite the makeup, the fat suit, and his acting talents, Leguizamo knew that once the producers heard his name again they would immediately turn off the tape. So he gave the audition to director Brad Furman, who had been pushing in favor of Leguizamo, who gave the tape to the producers claiming that it was an “unknown actor.”

The producers watched the tape and were blown away by how close the actor resembled Pablo Escobar. And that’s when Furman allegedly shouted: “Ha ha, you fools. That’s John Leguizamo!”

But hey, we’d probably be fooled to0. Take a good look at the picture above and then marvel at the transformation below.