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Sid in a scene from the motion picture "Ice Age."

John Leguizamo studied the sloth for 'Ice Age' role

BILL MULLER, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published Sunday, March 17, 2002

Let's face it, John Leguizamo just doesn't seem very slothlike.

The versatile actor is known for his high-energy film performances, from the evil, cackling clown in "Spawn" to Toulouse Lautrec in "Moulin Rouge" as well as one-man shows on Broadway, including "Spic-O-Rama."

But for "Ice Age," an animated comedy about prehistoric mammals, Leguizamo had to find his inner sloth. Namely, Sid the Sloth, who accompanies Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) and Diego the Sabertooth (Denis Leary) on a trek to return a lost human infant to his family.

"I was figuring, 'How am I going to do that character?' " Leguizamo says. "Maybe I should be the mammoth or another character, but I read the script and I really liked this character. He was really charming. He was like the glue of the piece, and he was really funny.

"I got the voice from watching Discovery Channel footage of the sloth. Not from their behavior, because they don't ever move. It's as exciting as watching erosion."

But before he clicked off the TV, Leguizamo heard the narrator say sloths store food in their mouths. With that in mind and after some experimentation, Leguizamo invented Sid's high-pitched semi-lisp.

Of course, reproducing Sid's voice over and over wasn't always easy.

"I never screamed that loud or high in my life," he says. "And I had to find this crazy-like, girl-like scream and sustain it."

So what was the secret?

"Tight underwear," Leguizamo jokes. But seriously, he says, the part wore on his vocal cords.

"I couldn't voice too much because it would beat me up," he says. "I had to do maybe four hours max, sometimes."

But that didn't stop Leguizamo from giving Sid plenty of energy. Although he likes his sleep, Sid moves pretty fast when necessary.

"For me to do it right, I've got to be really physical," Leguizamo says. "Like if my character is out of breath, I've got to run in place, be out of breath. If he's choking, I'll eat something, put it in my throat.

"I have to be in the same physical and emotional state as that character for it to really come to life. Otherwise, it sounds like somebody's reading a line."

Leguizamo, who also did voice work on the "Dr. Dolittle" movies and "Titan A.E.," relished the chance to create a classic animated film, especially because he grew up admiring the work of Mel Blanc in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

"Mel Blanc, to me, is one of the great comic geniuses of our time," Leguizamo says. "Just because he was animated doesn't mean that he didn't have perfect timing.

"He was like the Brando of animation. He really became those characters, and he did all of them."

When he started voice work, Leguizamo was a little taken aback by the process.

"It was really hard at first because you're in a room by yourself," he says, "and there's no scenery -- you just have a script, and you just start doing your voice."

But eventually, Leguizamo said he used the privacy to his advantage.

"I like being alone because I do all kinds of things that I would normally be more shy and embarrassed about."

And what about acting without other actors?

"I enjoyed it. No entourages. None of their agents or publicists around. None of that ego or vanity. It was just fun. No fear of failure, nothing. Just go off. It's very freeing."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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