According to the Internet Movie Database, Latino actor Danny Trejo has appeared in nearly two hundred movies since the mid-1980s. Despite his long and eclectic career (which includes such films as Michael Mann’s “Heat,” Simon West’s “Con Air,” Adam McKay’s “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” Rob Zombie’s “Halloween,” and nearly every Robert Rodriguez film), the grizzled and scarred 66 year old tough guy was always a supporting player, never the star. Now, fifteen years after being told about the role of a Mexican federale turned assassin while working with Rodriguez on “Desperado” (1995), Trejo has gotten his chance at leading man, in the form of their latest collaboration, “Machete.”
When asked how has his first starring role effected his approach to acting at a recent junket for the film, Trejo responded “Me and Robert go back….We’ve watched one another’s kids grow up….As far as being the lead, the only difference is that I got to kiss Jessica Alba! It’s a little different…Now you’re on the set every day and you have to realize this is your movie. It’s not that your attitude is different or your performance is different, you just help out in any way you can….It was a lot of fun.” Preparation also came naturally to Trejo, who simply noted “Robert has been training me for this movie since we did ‘Desperado’….It was just like stepping into the guy.”
Trejo’s shift from supporting actor to lead also brought some high profile talent to the film, including Trejo’s “Heat” co-star Robert DeNiro. As Rodriguez noted, the casting process “started with Danny and that attracts a lot in itself, as everyone has worked with him… [Steven] Seagal’s killed him a few times, DeNiro put a bullet in his head. So everyone felt ‘Well, Danny’s getting his shot we should be there for him.’ [Plus], the script sounded like fun…[the actors] get to play a role that they might not normally play and people like that. Like ‘Sin City,’ we had the trailer to help the actors picture themselves in the movie. It was so entertaining and different, a Mexican superhero!”
When not discussing Trejo’s transition from groomsman to groom, Rodriguez and Trejo spent a lot of time discussing the political subtext of the film. Sure to anger those veering to the right politically, “Machete” lampoons politicians who seek to stomp out, as the film’s Senator McLaughlin (DeNiro) notes, the cockroaches that come in the form of illegal immigrants. The film, to Rodriguez’s apparent surprise, is more relevant now, given the passage of Arizona SB 1070 and the visibility of its vocal defender, Senator John McCain. For Rodriguez, “The timing is amazing. When you make an exploitation film, you want to have a real issue. This one was just in reverse…Just recently, it became even more relevant and gave this other layer of entertainment. I wanted to use it as a backdrop to show some real corruption going on….People talk about immigration, but they won’t talk about the corruption that is actually between Mexico and the U.S., so I wanted a character that was super human, like a Rambo, to create a superhero who can solve problems that we can’t solve in the real-world. That was the purpose of Machete…it was driven by making the story fun.”
Trejo, with a slight chuckle, added, “The last time I flew home from Texas I flew home with Karl Rove….TMZ asked me about immigration when we landed and I said “Why don’t you ask [Rove]?” “Machete” hits theaters September 3. – Drew Morton
Great interview. Trejo's the man.