John Leguizamo Says He and Patrick Swayze ‘Made Up’ Before His Death (Exclusive)

John Leguizamo and Patrick Swayze were eventually able to put their differences aside following a feud during the making of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.

Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of the cult classic’s 30th anniversary on Sept. 8, Leguizamo opens up about his past beef with Swayze on the set of their 1995 dramedy and says that they were able to bury the hatchet before the Dirty Dancing star’s death.

“We were never in the same location, so that was kind of difficult. I’m a New Yorker and he was West Coast, but we did contact each other through letters and publicists; the polite way of doing it. And we made up,” says Leguizamo, 65. “It would’ve been better in person, obviously.”

The Leguizamo Does America host has been open over the years about how he and Swayze didn’t see eye to eye while making To Wong Foo, in which they starred alongside Wesley Snipes as three drag queens from New York City who run into some unexpected rural snags while on a cross-country road trip to a beauty pageant in Los Angeles.

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Leguizamo previously recalled his tense moments with Swayze in his 2007 memoir Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: My Life — including how the two almost got into a physical altercation. (Swayze, who died in 2009 at age 57, tells his side of the story in his posthumous memoir The Time of My Life).

More recently, in May 2024, Leguizamo said he found it “difficult” to work with Swayze when they made To Wong Foo during an interview with Andy Cohen for SiriusXM’s Radio Andy, considering they had very different approaches to their work.

“Rest in peace, I love [Patrick]. He was just neurotic, and … I’m neurotic too but, I don’t know … it was difficult working with him,” The Odyssey star said of Swayze. “Just neurotic, I think maybe a tiny bit insecure.”

He went on, “And then Wesley and I, we vibed because, you know, we’re people of color and we got each other. And I’m also an improviser, and [Patrick] didn’t like that.”

According to Leguizamo, Swayze “couldn’t keep up with” his ad-libbing moments, “and it would make him mad and upset sometimes.”

“He’d be like, ‘Are you gonna say a line like that?’ I’d go, ‘You know me. I’m gonna do me. I’m gonna just keep making up lines,’ ” the actor recalled to Cohen, 57. “He goes, ‘Well, can you just say the line the way it is?’ I go, ‘I can’t.’ And the director [Beeban Kidron] didn’t want me to.”

But as Leguizamo tells PEOPLE now, reflecting on that time, “Sometimes I’m not the most mature person in the room, maybe. I don’t know what it is. Sometimes I hold grudges.”

He jokes in addition, “Yeah, I’m going to keep going to therapy and someday I’ll fix all this.”

Three decades later, Leguizamo still keeps in contact with several of his costars from the film, including Blythe Danner and Snipes, 63.

“Blythe, I’ve had dinner with a few times. She lives in the Hamptons near me,” he says. “She’s still one of the great actresses of our time, and a beautiful human being.”

Of Snipes, Leguizamo adds, “He’s met my family. We’ve had dinner together. I love that guy. I have huge respect for his ability, talent and the kind of person that he is.”

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is available to stream on YouTube TV.