For decades, Hollywood knew exactly where to place Luis Guzmán. He was the detective, the prisoner, the henchman, the gangster, or the man who entered a room carrying enough street credibility to make everyone else nervous.
Children were not necessarily the audience expected to run toward him asking for a hug.
But that is precisely what is happening now.
"I have received so much love from 7-, 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds," Guzmán told this reporter in Spanish. "They are my fans. I hug them all. I always thank them for their support."
It is one of the most unexpected developments in a career that has lasted nearly five decades. The Puerto Rican actor who built an extraordinary filmography by bringing humanity, humor, and danger to supporting characters is now recognized by children as Gomez Addams, the passionate family patriarch he plays in Netflix's Wednesday. On Aug. 28, another generation will meet him as the judge presiding over Wile E. Coyote's lawsuit against the Acme Corporation in Coyote vs. Acme.
The live-action and animation hybrid follows the perpetually unlucky coyote as he takes legal action against the company whose rockets, explosives, traps and other products have repeatedly failed him. Will Forte plays the struggling attorney representing Coyote, while John Cena portrays Acme's formidable lawyer. Guzmán, seated above them all, gets to enjoy a kind of authority Hollywood did not always give him.
"When I enter that courtroom, everybody has to stand up," he said with unmistakable satisfaction. "I sit down and everybody sits down. That feeling of power is really good."
The line is funny, but the evolution behind it is significant. Guzmán spent much of his career playing men on the wrong side of the law or characters forced to survive close to it. His credits include Carlito's Way, Boogie Nights, Traffic, Oz, The Limey and Narcos. He was often the tough guy, but rarely just a tough guy. Even when the industry handed him a familiar Latino archetype, Guzmán found the comedy, vulnerability or intelligence that made the character harder to dismiss.
Now he is the one administering justice in a family movie populated by characters he watched as a child.
"This movie has reality with cartoons and cartoons with reality," Guzmán said. "It is a well-made film, and I know people are going to receive it very well."
His connection to Looney Tunes began long before he imagined himself inside that universe. One of the first characters who captured his attention was Speedy Gonzales, partly because the fast-talking mouse carried something Guzmán rarely encountered in American animation at the time.
"For me, it was the first time I saw something that had a little Latino flavor," he said. Speedy's familiar cry of "Ándale, ándale" was something Guzmán and his mother immediately understood.
He also loved Pepé Le Pew, although he acknowledged that the relentlessly romantic skunk looks considerably different through a modern lens.
"Pepé was a little crazy, but I knew he had a good heart," Guzmán said. "He was a romantic."
Then he delivered his verdict: Pepé Le Pew was "the original papi chulo."
That affection for unapologetically romantic characters also helps explain what Guzmán brought to Gomez Addams. His version of Gomez is not intimidating because he is violent or dangerous. He is powerful because he adores his family without embarrassment, particularly his wife, Morticia.
"That love is a simple love," Guzmán said. "It comes from a good part of my heart. It is a love that I carry with me."
The role changed the way younger audiences see him. Children who were not alive when Traffic or Boogie Nights premiered now know him as Wednesday Addams' devoted father. Their parents and grandparents recognize the actor from entirely different chapters of his career.
Guzmán sees Coyote vs. Acme as another opportunity to bring those generations together. Looney Tunes characters have been part of popular culture for decades, but the movie places them inside a contemporary story that children can discover alongside the adults who grew up watching them.
"Grandparents who were raised with these characters and children are going to love it," he said. "That is going to create a tremendous conversation within the family."
Guzmán's ability to connect with much younger audiences has also given him a new source of energy as he approaches 70. He walks five or six miles a day, drinks plenty of water, eats carefully and dances salsa. He also uses skin-care products occasionally, although he does not pretend to follow an elaborate celebrity beauty ritual.
"Like my mother says, I love myself and I take care of myself," he said. "Papi takes care of himself the best he can."
There is one exception to all that discipline: ice cream.
He loves it, and he is not giving it up.
That balance of self-care, pleasure and humor mirrors the warmth that younger audiences appear to have discovered in him. Hollywood may have spent years introducing Luis Guzmán as the man viewers were supposed to fear. Children now see something else: Gomez Addams, a cartoon judge and a man who will gladly stop to return their affection.
For Guzmán, that audience is not secondary to the adults who have followed his work for decades. It is evidence that his career continues to move somewhere new.
"I have been fortunate to work on different projects that brought me to this level," he said. "And I love it because it is not only adults. It is children and everyone in between."
