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It's the classic conundrum of every character actor: you know the face, but can't place the name. In the case of Danny Trejo, however, it's a face that's truly unforgettable, and a name that's top-billed in one of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer - Machete, Robert Rodriguez's high-octane tribute to action and exploitation movies of the 1970s. The film, which opens September 3, is Trejo's first leading role in a career that spans over two decades, and began in a place even rougher than Hollywood: San Quentin State Prison.
As detailed in the 2007 documentary Champion, Trejo had planned to become a boxer, but a spate of crimes and drug charges landed him in prison in the early 1980s. The experience helped him to turn his life around, becoming not only a California state prison boxing champ, but a 12-step program member that helped introduce him to the movie business. A friend in recovery hired him as an extra in the 1985 film Runaway Train; its screenwriter, fellow ex-con Edward Bunker (Reservoir Dogs), remembered Trejo and hired him to train Eric Roberts for his boxing scenes. Director Andrei Konchalevsky eventually cast him as Roberts' sparring partner.
Trejo's sinewy frame - highlighted by a tattoo of a woman in a sombrero that sprawls across his entire chest - and icy gaze made him a natural for bit and character parts that required unquestionable toughness and violence, and he essayed all manner of crooks, cons and gangsters in projects ranging from Mi Vida Loca (1993) and Marked for Death (1990) to episodes of "Baywatch." He became a staple of Robert Rodriguez's films after 1995's Desperado; Rodriguez was among the first directors to cast Trejo outside of his traditional roles by tapping him to play Isador "Machete" Cortez, the proud inventor uncle of Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara in Spy Kids(2001). He repeated the role, who eventually grew more comic, in the two sequels, and played an entirely different Machete in a faux trailer of the same name in Grindhouse (2007). It's this Machete that takes center stage in the new film, which features a genuinely eclectic cast that Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, Cheech Marin and Steven Seagal.
Like all character actors, Trejo worked in everything from low-budget, direct-to-video titles to major Hollywood features and everything in between, so a "best-of" list will be entirely dependent on one's tastes. Some viewers may only go for work with Rodriguez, which includes all three From Dusk Till Dawn movies and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, or want to see only his turns as a Stone Cold Baddie in pics like Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects (as bounty hunter Rondo) or the more recent Predators (as an ill-fated Mexican drug cartel gunman). However, some of Trejo's best work is in roles where he tempers his granite facade with a touch of humor, as in Once Upon a Time in Mexico - watch his stone-faced reaction to Johnny Depp's "Are you a Mexican or a Mexi-can't?" - or a degree of ruefulness, like in the little-seen prison drama Animal Factory (penned by Bunker) or even Rob Zombie's Halloween (as a mental hospital worker who takes pity on Michael Myers). And though it's not a good film by any means, the scene in Delta Farce in which his gang leader - named Carlos Santana - tears enthusiastically through a karoake version of "I Will Survive" shows a dedication to his craft that few other actors would have the stones to display on-screen. Viva Danny Trejo! -- Paul Gaita
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