John Leguizamo reveals one franchise bought his homes and paid his kids’ college
In a new interview, John Leguizamo picked the voice role in a long-running franchise that bankrolled his family life.
Here’s one for anyone who’s ever wondered just how far a lovable animated sloth can take you in life. John Leguizamo, these days turning heads as Eumaeus in Christopher Nolan’s 2026 epic The Odyssey, is still happy to talk about his years voicing Sid the Sloth in the Ice Age films. It’s not just the odd nostalgic anecdote either—he’s pretty frank about what the gig did for his bank account.
‘It paid my bills! It got me a second and a triple home. It paid for my kids’ college.’
Not just paying the bills
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight ahead of the upcoming sixth film—yes, Ice Age: Boiling Point is happening—Leguizamo plainly credits Sid with a proper chunk of his financial security. Apparently, the franchise let him ‘be really as funny’ as he wanted to be. In his words, while most of his movies veer dramatic, voicing Sid allowed him to go all out on the comedy: ‘I got to be hilarious. I got to be so silly and create this incredible character and creature.’
Sloths, research, and that lisp
Entertainment Tonight dug up an old interview from 2002, just to see how deep the Sid origins go. Back then, Leguizamo explained his… let’s call it “method slothing”: he actually requested Discovery Channel footage on sloths before recording. After two hours of watching a dangerously stationary sloth, he clocked a line from the narrator: sloths store food in their mouths. That was the kernel for Sid’s distinct lateral lisp, as if he’s permanently got a mouthful.
‘And just when I was about to turn it off two hours later, it still hadn’t moved. The narrator said, “They store food in their mouths.” That’s how I started to come up with this sort of lateral lisp, from all the food. And that’s how we started to come up with the character.’
To this day, he says he ‘can’t really let go of Sid the Sloth’ and sometimes finds himself slipping back into the character’s distinctive voice. Honestly, given what Sid’s done for him, who can blame him?
Boiling Point: The gang’s all (mostly) here
Leguizamo also teased the next chapter, Ice Age: Boiling Point. This time, the much-loved trio is reuniting—Queen Latifah is returning, and apparently Jennifer Lopez is along for the ride as well. He reckons ‘everybody’s coming back for this one’, so if you’re into nostalgia, this is your moment. And yes, he’s still the voice of Sid.