Guillermo Rodriguez (Jimmy Kimmel Live!)

Guillermo Rodriguez^[1] (born January 27, 1971, Zacatecas, Mexico), more commonly known as simply Guillermo, is a Mexican-American talk show personality who rose to fame while working as a parking lot security guard at the Hollywood Blvd studios for American late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!.^[2] He continues in character and title as Jimmy Kimmel Live's security guard, but actually performs nightly as Jimmy Kimmel's sidekick.

Career

He quickly became a permanent, nightly cast-member after performing satisfactorily in comedy bits written by the show.

Guillermo's broken English (characterized most clearly with his constant pronunciation of the show's host as "Yim-ee") coupled with his affable likability and Teddy Bear-like quality have earned him as high a profile as any supporting personality on the show. Guillermo has taken over main red-carpet interviewing duties from Kimmel's original choice for such events, the late "Uncle Frank" Potenza, whom he was often paired with for the show's comedic skits.^[2][3]

Guillermo's signature segment is "Guillermo's Hollywood Roundup", in which Guillermo, dressed in a cowboy outfit and pretending to twirl a special effect operated lasso, makes mockery of entertainment news shows featured widely on television. From outside the theater and standing next to his West Coast Customs-made "Guillermobile", he'll answer inquiries directed at him from Kimmel about the latest tabloid stories by simply taking a rack of tabloid magazines that the "Guillermobile" has been fitted with and attempting to interpret the stories in usually an unintentionally amusing and mis-translated way.^[4]

Another popular and recurring bit is announcing that Guillermo has a role in a current or recent major motion picture release and showing a clip of an at-first familiar trailer for said movie with Guillermo humorously edited in, his appearance often made-up to resemble a character in the movie. One of the more popular ones had been when he impersonated Matt Damon's character of Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum by responding when asked to be named, "I am Yay-son...the Bourne..Identity." A physical fight between Guillermo and Matt Damon's actual character ensued. He starred alongside Jimmy Kimmel in Boo! a spoof of Saw.^[5] Guillermo was also given the opportunity to run the first season's Wipeout Zone for the Top 25 Moments of Season 1, but he quit on the Barrel Run. He appeared as a special guest on the last episode of successful Univision telenovela Eva Luna on April 11, 2011.

Guillermo often sets out to interview famous celebrities, some of whom, apparently, do not know who he is, which results in humorous interplay. For example, Guillermo appeared at the 2015 NBA playoffs and called out to LeBron James as James was practicing. James, who obviously heard his name being called out, ignored Guillermo who had a meter counting how many times the name "LeBron" would be called before James acknowledged Guillermo's presence.

References

External links

• Guillermo Rodriguez at the Internet Movie Database