A leading member of the contemporary generation of Method actors carrying on the tradition of psychological realism innovated on stage and screen by Marlon Brando, Benicio del Toro (birthname: Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sanchez) is also one of the most successful and awarded Latino actors in Hollywood and American indie cinema. At the same time, Del Toro can’t be pegged as simply “Method”: His borderline mumbling verbal and antsy physical style is unique, as individual and signature as young Dustin Hoffman’s behavioral quirks or Christopher Walken’s eccentric verbal flourishes.
After small roles in some notable films such as Sean Penn’s The Indian Runner (1991) and Peter Weir’s Fearless (1993), with Jeff Bridges, Del Toro’s eye (and ear)-catching breakthrough was in Bryan Singer/Christopher McQuarrie’s The Usual Suspects (1995), with a colorful cast including Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, and Stephen Baldwin, and earning him his first major prize as Best Supporting Male in the Independent Spirit Awards, which Del Toro duplicated the following year in Julian Schnabel’s stylish biopic, Basquiat (1996).
Benicio del Toro began an impressive run of memorable performances in films by major filmmakers, including Abel Ferrara (The Funeral, with Christopher Walken in 1996); Tony Scott (The Fan, with Robert De Niro in 1996); Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with Johnny Depp in 1998); McQuarrie (The Way of the Gun, with Ryan Phillippe in 2000); Penn, once again (The Pledge, in 2001), and William Friedkin (The Hunted, with Tommy Lee Jones and Connie Nielsen, in 2003).
Del Toro won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his acclaimed performance in Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling ensemble epic, Traffic (2000), with Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Dennis Quaid, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Del Toro’s second Oscar nomination came just three years later, in 2003, for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s drama, 21 Grams, with Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Melissa Leo, and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Known as a selective actor with an acute script sense, Del Toro has tended to perform in only one to two features per year, and even less frequently than that. By 2008, Del Toro was participating as a producer: First, in his most ambitious starring role to date, as Che Guevara in Soderbergh’s epic two-part biopic, Che (2008), with Demian Bichir, Rodrigo Santoro, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Joaquim de Almeida; then as the star/title role of Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman (2010), with Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt.
After contrasting roles in Oliver Stone’s dark crime thriller, Savages (2012), and with the title role in Arnaud Desplechin’s English-language debut, Jimmy P. (2013), with Mathieu Almaric, Benicio Del Toro was cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Taneleer Tivan/The Collector. This placed Del Toro firmly in the worlds of several Marvel Studios blockbusters, including Thor: The Dark World (2013); James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), with Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana; and the mega-blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War (2018), with Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, and Scarlett Johansson.
Del Toro has also performed in the Star Wars Universe, by way of Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), and has played the recurring role of ex-prosecutor turned assassin Alejandro Gillick in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario (2015), with Emily Blunt and Josh Brolin, and Stefano Sollima’s sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018), again with Brolin.
Recently, Del Toro has been working with some of the most prominent American independent filmmakers, including Paul Thomas Anderson’s anticipated adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (2014); Del Toro’s third project with Soderbergh (No Sudden Move, in 2021); and Wes Anderson (The French Dispatch, also in 2021, with Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, and Jeffrey Wright).
Del Toro is serving as executive producer and star of Grant Singer’s writer-director debut, Reptile (date to be announced), with Justin Timberlake and Alicia Silverstone. Del Toro reunites with filmmaker Oliver Stone for the multi-generational drama, White Lies (date to be announced), and is attached to the Cuban mafia crime drama, The Corporation (date to announced), in which he will portray crime kingpin Jose Miguel Battle.
