Meet the production team

Learn more about the people behind “Leguizamo Does America”

Leguizamo Does America
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John Leguizamo

A multi-faceted creator, John Leguizamo has established a career that defies categorization. With boundless energy and creativity, his work in film, theatre, television, and literature covers a variety of genres, continually threatening to create a few of its own.

Upcoming for Leguizamo includes director Mark Mylod’s comedy horror The Menu, the Christmas action comedy film Violent Night, the Amazon drama series The Power, where he stars alongside Toni Collette, as well as his yet unnamed travel-culture show on MSNBC.

John also has three book deals in the works Scholastic, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster all focusing on Latin History and increasing representation of Latin characters.

Leguizamo received a Special Tony Award at the 2018 Tony Awards after wrapping an extended Broadway run of Latin History for Morons, his latest one-man show, delivering his take on 500 years of Latin History spanning the Aztec and Incan Empires to World War II.

Leguizamo’s Ghetto Klown, a graphic novel adaptation of his Broadway one-man show of the same name, was nominated for an Eisner award. He also released a comic book, Freak, based on his solo show of the same name.

Recently, John earned both a Critic’s Choice and Emmy Award nomination for his role as Raymond Santana Sr. in the Netflix series When They See Us, and an Emmy nomination for his role in the Paramount Network television series Waco alongside Taylor Kitsch and Michael Shannon. His directorial debut, Critical Thinking, was selected to premiere at SXSW Film Festival.

Leguizamo has garnered numerous other accolades throughout his career including an Emmy Award, a Drama Desk Award, as well as nominations for Tony Awards and Golden Globes.

Mr. Leguizamo’s film credits include, but are not limited to: The Survivor, Encanto, Chef, Carlito’s Way, To Wong Foo: Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar, Romeo + Juliet, The Pest, Moulin Rouge!, Summer of Sam, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Ice Age franchise.

Leguizamo currently resides in New York City with his wife and two children.


Ben DeJesus is an Emmy and Tony-nominated director, producer, writer and co-founder of NGL Studios with his partner John Leguizamo. With over a decade of experience in the U.S. multicultural, Latinx and youth markets, DeJesus has created over 100 hours of award-winning content including non-fiction, episodic, music videos and branded content.


Carolina Saavedra is an Executive Producer and television creative with extensive documentary experience for networks including MSNBC, VH1, A&E, Discovery, History Channel, Netflix, Amazon, Apple+ and HBOMax.

Carolina began her career at NBC News as a Talent Coordinator and then migrated to MSNBC’s documentary department where she worked on projects featuring high-profile subjects and historical events. As a freelance Producer she has overseen various titles in many different genres, including Mark Wahlberg’s Wahl Street, Kate Del Castillo’s The Day I Met El Chapo, and Los Jets (television); Jennifer Lopez’s Halftime (film); and Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood (podcast).

Carolina’s passion is producing documentary projects that highlight social issues, provoke thought and push conversations about the human condition forward.

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