Leon Sings His Way to Romance in the Bronx and ‘Five Heartbeats’

Oooh, baby, baby.

Leon, who plays the womanizing singer J.T. in Robert Townsend’s new film, “The Five Heartbeats,” is something of a singing Romeo himself.

As a teen-ager in the Bronx, he discovered a song was the quickest way to a woman’s heart. “I would say my major influence would be Smokey Robinson,” he says. “The guys would rap different lines to girls. But what could I say that hadn’t already been said? So I used to change around the lyrics of Smokey Robinson songs. And they loved it.”

Leon was a freshman at Loyola Marymount University on a basketball scholarship when a graduate film student “begged” him to be in his film project. Though the finished product was atrocious, Leon was hooked on acting.

“I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” he says. “I felt like I had found my niche.”

His first big break plays like a scene from “A Star Is Born.” It all started when he was called to do extra work on “Stripes.”

“I didn’t want to be an extra,” Leon admits. “I wanted to be a movie star. Then I thought, if I want to be a movie star, I should probably see what a movie set looks like. I thought the star would see me on the set and put me in the movie.”

Which is exactly what happened. Four hours after arriving on the set, Bill Murray invited Leon to hang out with him. “The next thing you know, I was doing a scene with him in the movie.”

Leon is best known as the crucified idol Madonna worships in her controversial “Like a Prayer” video.

“I wasn’t interested in doing it,” Leon says. “I fancied myself a serious actor. But then I said, ‘Let me get this right. You want to make a statue of me and immortalize me? You want Madonna to adore me and kiss my feet and for me to make love to her? That’s what you want? Well, I can do that.’ ”