Guillermo Rodriguez (born January 27, 1971), more commonly known as Guillermo, is a

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

talk show personality who rose to fame while working as a parking lot security guard at the Hollywood Boulevard studios for American late night talk show ''

Jimmy Kimmel Live! ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. The nightly hour-long show debuted on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, Los ...

'' He continues in character and title as the show's security guard, but actually performs nightly as Jimmy Kimmel's sidekick.

Early life

Rodriguez was born in Zacatecas, Mexico.

Career

Rodriguez began working as a parking-lot security guard for ''

'' studio in 2003. At that time he also had a second full-time job (hotel room server) as well as working weekends at a third. He later moved from being a parking-lot security guard to appearing on-screen. Due to his shyness at the time Rodriguez initially turned down the offer to appear on the show in 2003 but was talked into it by one of the producers. His early appearances were with "Uncle Frank" Potenza in a series of bits called "Security Night Live". (Potenza had originally handled security for the show before his role was expanded to appear on screen.) Rodriguez soon moved to acting in skits on the show with his first role being Michael Jackson's Spanish cook. His broken English coupled with his affability and teddy bear-like quality earned him a high-profile supporting role as a personality on the show, in which he usually plays the Everyman. Guillermo took over main red-carpet interviewing duties in 2011 after Potenza died of natural causes. Rodriguez's signature segment is "Guillermo's Hollywood Roundup", in which, dressed in a cowboy outfit and pretending to twirl a special effect operated lasso, he makes a mockery of entertainment news shows featured widely on television. From outside the theater and standing next to his West Coast Customs-made "Guillermobile", he answers Kimmel's questions about the latest

tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid, a biplane aircraft * ''Ta ...

stories by taking a rack of magazines that the "Guillermobile" has been fitted with, and attempts to interpret the stories in an amusing and mis-translated way. Another recurring joke is announcing that Rodriguez has a role in a current or recent major motion picture release and showing a clip of an at-first familiar trailer for the movie with Rodriguez edited in, his appearance often made-up to resemble a character in the movie. One sketch has Rodriguez impersonating Matt Damon's character of Jason Bourne in ''

The Bourne Ultimatum ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' is the third Jason Bourne novel written by Robert Ludlum and a sequel to ''The Bourne Supremacy'' (1986). First published in 1990, it was the last Bourne novel to be written by Ludlum himself. Eric Van Lustbader wrote a ...

'' by responding when asked to be named, "I am Yay-son... Bourne Identity." A physical fight between Rodriguez and Damon's actual character ensues. Rodriguez also starred alongside Kimmel in Boo!, a spoof of ''Saw''. Rodriguez often sets out to interview famous celebrities. Some of his subjects do not know who he is, which the show uses for humorous interplay. Rodriguez regularly appears at the

NBA Finals The NBA Finals is the annual championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Eastern and Western Conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion. The team that wins the series is awa ...

to interview players. At the 2015 Finals, he called out to LeBron James as James was practicing. James ignored Rodriguez, who had a meter counting how many times the name "LeBron" would be called before James acknowledged his presence. Guillermo will also interview and offer tequila to celebrities at the annual Academy Awards. Rodriguez appeared as a special guest on the last episode of Univision telenovela ''Eva Luna'' on April 11, 2011. In 2017, he had a brief uncredited cameo in Marvel's '' Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'' as a policeman, which he revealed in a video on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' in April 2017. In April 2017, Jimmy Kimmel named his son "Billy" after Guillermo. Rodriguez was made an honorary citizen of Dildo through the

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

tradition of " screeching in", on August 15, 2019, during ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!''

Personal life

Rodriguez is married. He and his wife have a son named Benji who was born on December 11, 2011. He became a U.S. citizen in 2005.

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Guillermo 1971 births Living people Mexican television personalities Mexican emigrants to the United States Security guards American television personalities of Mexican descent People with acquired American citizenship