Luis Guzmán Looks Back on His Filmography: Super Mario, Community, and The Limey

For most of its cast and audience, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie offers a chance to make childhood real again. The film recalls those carefree days of sitting in front of a Nintendo Entertainment System or one of its successors, being dazzled by the fantastic adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Not so for Luis Guzmán, who voices Wart in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. “We were too poor back then,” he tells Den of Geek. “My kids played the games, but I never really had the ability for it. But I would sit down and just watch how they manipulated all that stuff. When they’d leave the room, I’d sit down and give it my best attempt. But everything I know about the Super Mario universe came from my kids.”

If anyone can be forgiven for not being a super-fan of the property, it’s Luis Guzmán. The Puerto Rican character actor has a career that spans more than 40 years. He has worked on everything classics by auteurs such as Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Soderbergh to pop culture phenomenons like Community and Wednesday.

“I’m just happy to have a job,” Guzmán says of those breaks. “I’m happy to be working with great people, and I’m always happy to have a foundation for my career. They’re all building blocks to where I am now. I’m very humbled to have been part of them, though.”

That humility is clear in his response to a subplot in the sitcom Community, in which Greendale Community College erected a statue of Guzmán, recognizing him as the school’s greatest former student.

“I got a call from the Russo Brothers, and they said they were sending someone up to my place to make a mold,” Guzmán recalls. “I wasn’t sure what was going on. And I didn’t find out until after the fact that they were making a statue of me as the most famous alumnus of Greendale College.

“I was very honored. Not so much because it’s a statue of me, and not to be egotistical by any means. But I saw it as an homage to the Guzmán legacy.”

Guzmán also responds with humility when asked if that connection to the Russo Brothers could lead to an MCU appearance. “I don’t like calling people like that, and I’m doing so much stuff right now. If it happens, it happens,” he says demurely. But then, a wry smile crosses Guzmán’s face, and he gives a little wink as he continues. “But I’m sure that it will happen sooner or later, now that you mention it.”

Until then, Guzmán hopes that roles in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Wednesday will inspire younger generations to look back into his filmography.

“The Limey was very special to me,” he says, pointing out the 1999 Steven Soderbergh film, in which Terence Stamp plays an aging English gangster avenging the death of his daughter. “That has one of my favorite lines, when I’m outside with Terence Stamp, and I say, ‘You know, you could see the sea out there, if you could see it.’ To me, that is a very iconic line in my career, you know?

“I love that movie. I love what Steven did with it. And I got to work with some of the OGs, you know: Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Bill Duke, Terence Stamp. I learned so much from just being in the same space as they were. I wish people would take notice of that movie, because I think it was really special.”

As important as those screen legends were to his career, it was Guzmán’s kids who helped him with his latest role, as Wart in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

“They were so excited, saying, ‘Wart’s finally coming out in the movie!’ It was a huge surprise to them.

“The told me that Wart is a baddie, and I always look at that as a positive. Because I know the baddie is going to have an impact on the story, it’s part of the legacy. And he does really move the story along.

“What I liked about Wart is that he’s a really cool guy in this story. He’s sitting there cutting up an apple and talking about how apples are really good nutritionally, but I’m also bad and I don’t let them forget it.

“I feel like audiences were really waiting for him to show up, and I’m happy to do it for my kids.”

With that last observation, Guzmán perfectly encapsulates his legacy as an actor: always popping up in surprising places, always willing to do the work, and always thrilling the audience.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is now playing in theaters.