Biography
Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (born February 19, 1967) is an Academy Award-winning Puerto Rican actor and film producer. He is best known for his roles as Fred Fenster in The Usual Suspects, Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez in Traffic and Jack 'Jackie Boy' Rafferty in Sin City.
Early life
Del Toro was born in Miramar, Santurce, Puerto Rico; his parents, Gustavo Adolfo del Toro Bermúdez and Fausta Sánchez Rivera, were both lawyers. He has an older brother, Gustavo, who is a pediatric oncologist. Del Toro's childhood nicknames were "Skinny Benny" and "Beno". He was raised Catholic and attended Academia del Perpetuo Socorro(The Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help), a Roman Catholic school in Miramar, Puerto Rico. When he was nine years old, his mother died of hepatitis. At the age of thirteen, del Toro's father moved his two sons to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, where del Toro was enrolled at the Mercersburg Academy. He spent his adolescence and high school there.
After graduation, del Toro followed the advice of his father and pursued a degree in business at the University of California, San Diego.Success in an elective drama course encouraged him to drop out of college and study with noted acting teachers Stella Adler and Arthur Mendoza in Los Angeles, as well as at the Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York.
Career
Del Toro began to surface in small television parts during the late 1980s, playing mostly thugs and drug dealers on programs like Miami Vice and the NBC miniseries, Drug Wars: The Camarena Story. He had a cameo in Madonna's 1987 music video clip "La Isla Bonita" as a background character. Work in films followed, beginning with his debut in Big Top Pee-wee and in the 007 film Licence to Kill,in which 21-year-old del Toro held the distinction of being the youngest actor ever to play a Bond villain. Although both films were considered box office disappointments, del Toro continued to appear in movies like The Indian Runner (1991), China Moon (1991), Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), Money for Nothing (1993), Fearless (1993) and Swimming with Sharks (1994).
His career gained momentum in 1995 with his breakout performance in The Usual Suspects, where he played the mumbling, wisecracking Fred Fenster. The role won him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor and established him as a character actor. This led to more strong roles in independent and major studio films, including playing Gaspare in Abel Ferrara's The Funeral (1996) and winning a second consecutive Best Supporting Actor Independent Spirit Award for his work as Benny Dalmau in Basquiat (1996), directed by his friend, artist Julian Schnabel. Del Toro also shared the screen with Robert De Niro in the big budget thriller The Fan, in which he played Juan Primo, a charismatic Mexican baseball star.
For Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the 1998 film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's famous book, he packed on more than 40 lbs. (about 18 kg) to play Dr. Gonzo (a.k.a. Oscar Zeta Acosta), Thompson's lawyer and drug-fiend cohort.Del Toro's performance divided critics and audiences. Even though del Toro has told interviewers this was a low point in his career, Terry Gilliam's surrealistic film has earned a cult following over the years. Returning from a self-imposed two-year hiatus after Fear and Loathing, del Toro would gain a mainstream audience in 2000 with a string of performances in four high-profile films. First up was The Way of the Gun, a crime yarn that reunited him with The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, making his directorial debut. A few months later, he stood out among a first-rate ensemble cast in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, a complex dissection of the North American drug wars. As Javier Rodriguez — a Mexican border cop struggling to remain honest amid the corruption and deception of illegal drug trafficking — del Toro, who spoke most of his lines in Spanish, gave a performance that dominated the film and earned him his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
His praised work swept all of the major critics awards in 2001, as well as the Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. In addition to the critical accolades, Traffic was also a success at the box office, bringing to del Toro real Hollywood clout for the first time in his career. While Traffic was still playing in theaters, two other del Toro films were released in late 2000/early 2001. He had a brief role as the diamond thief Franky Four Fingers in Guy Ritchie's hip caper comedy Snatch, and played a mentally-challenged Native American man in The Pledge, directed by his old friend Sean Penn.
All of this attention helped to cement Benicio's status as a sex symbol. He was placed on People magazine's annual "50 Most Beautiful People" list. While his looks have led to comparisons with Marlon Brando and James Dean, he has been jokingly referred as the "Spanish Brad Pitt". In 2003, del Toro appeared in two films: The Hunted, co-starring Tommy Lee Jones, and the drama 21 Grams, an acting tour-de-force, co-starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. He went on to garner another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work in the latter.
His most recent roles were in the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City, directed by Robert Rodriguez, and Things We Lost in the Fire, the English language debut of celebrated Danish director Susanne Bier. Things We Lost in the Fire co-starred Halle Berry, Alison Lohman, and John Carroll Lynch.
Academy Award
In 2001, del Toro became the fourth Oscar winner whose winning role was a character who speaks predominantly in a foreign language (most of del Toro's dialogue is in Spanish). Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, and Roberto Benigni are the other three. Del Toro is also the third Puerto Rican actor to win an Oscar. The other two were actors Jose Ferrer and Rita Moreno. The night he won his Oscar, it was the first time that two actors born in Puerto Rico were nominated in the same category (The other actor was Joaquin Phoenix for his role in Gladiator).
