Benicio
del Toro
When Benicio
Del Toro first announced to his father and siblings that he intended
to pursue a career in acting, they didn't take the news very well. As
Del Toro told one interviewer, "My family freaked when I told them
I wanted to be an actor. It was like telling them I wanted to be an
astronaut. On top of that, it was like saying that in order to be an
astronaut, I was going to have to drive a cab in New York for five years.
"
The family probably felt that its worst fears had been realized when
Del Toro won his first movie role, playing "Duke the Dog-Faced
Boy," in the ill-contrived sequel to Pee-WeeÆs Big Adventure,
Big Top Pee-Wee. Undaunted by the execrable effort, Del Toro stuck it
out, and over the course of the next several years, he paid the bills
with a steady stream of supporting roles, both in films and on television,
including several memorable portrayals of drug-dealing heavies.
His career
caught fire with the role of enunciation-challenged con man Fred Fenster
in Bryan Singer's stunning ensemble crime drama The Usual Suspects (1995),
a performance for which he won an Independent Spirit Best Supporting
Actor award; he won the same award the following year for his work in
the critically lauded biopic Basquiat. With a résumé comprised
in equal measures of mainstream fare and independent projects, Del Toro
is uniquely positioned to become a draw both at the box office and on
the film-festival circuit.
Now living
in Los Angeles, Del Toro maintains a low profile between movies, and
has thus far managed to avoid becoming entangled in any celebrity romances.
His screenwriting and directing debut short Submission, which starred
a pre-celebrity Matthew McConaughey, premiered at the Venice Film Festival
in 1995. The fledgling filmmaker would like to direct again at some
point, but has said of himself, "I get quite embarrassed with my
acting when I see it on the screen. I would imagine with a film that's
my own, I'd be really embarrassed and have to leave the country."
While he may not get behind the camera again anytime soon, he's spent
plenty of time in front of it: 1998 brought a role as lawyer and Hunter
S. Thompson confidante Oscar Acosta in the Terry Gilliam-directed Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas; and Del Toro had a banner year in 2000, with
his Golden Globe- and Oscar-winning supporting performance in Steven
Soderbergh's drug war-focused drama Traffic, and his co-starring turn
in Guy Ritchie's well-received crime caper Snatch.
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