For Anglos interested in adding to their Spanish vocabulary, sicario means “hit man.” The recently released movie “Sicario” — an intense drug-trade thriller filmed on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border, starring Benicio Del Toro — has been generating Oscar buzz.
A screening of the film at the Malibu Film Society on Friday, Nov. 6, played to a packed house, and was immediately followed by an audience Q&A with Del Toro, who stars in the film alongside Emily Blunt and Josh Brolin.
Among the 36 films made by Del Toro, he is perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning performance as an honest cop in “Traffic” and has also received awards for his work in “The Usual Suspects,” “Che” and “21 Grams.” In addition, he was the lead in “Escobar” and the youngest actor ever to play a James Bond villain in “License to Kill.”
In “Sicario,” Del Toro plays a mysterious mercenary known only as Alejandro — a member of a multiagency U.S. task force with a mission targeting Mexico’s drug trade. During the Q&A on Friday night, he let the audience in on his acting process and philosophy.
Because Del Toro has appeared in several films about drug trafficking, one audience member asked how this film compared to others. He said, “This is much different than ‘Traffic,’ for example — it’s a thriller. What’s compelling to me about it is that in 15 years, not much has changed. There have been a few changes in U.S. and Mexican laws about marijuana, but the overall consumption of drugs hasn’t changed.”
The Puerto-Rican born actor said when he read the script, “I did believe this character could be out there. I was attracted to the character, and yet repulsed — he wasn’t just black and white, there were a lot of gray areas. He represents the frustration of what’s going on [in the drug war] and wants to get rid of the evil that’s caused so much hurt.”
In playing this man-of-few-words character driven by revenge, Del Toro said he envisioned the way Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington might have done it, saying that every actor has role models.
“When you see them doing it, you think you can do it, too,” Del Toro shared. “Eastwood and Washington opened doors for other younger actors. It’s not that you copy them, but they showed you it’s safe and possible to take a chance in front of the camera.”
Del Toro feels that dialog should be true to the character and ring true in real life.
“It wasn’t my intent to be condescending to the writer,” he said, but he did ask for some dialog to be cut, including one scene in particular.
“There was originally a scene where Alejandro and Emily Blunt are on a bridge, and he tells Blunt his life story. My experience in life is that when two people have only known each other for 18 hours, they don’t open up like that,” Del Toro explained. “And especially not a character like Alejandro. It’s not just because I don’t want to learn my lines.” The scene was cut and some of the lines were given to Josh Brolin.
Del Toro said acting in every movie is completely different, and the key to good performance
is to “try to listen” to the director. “Sicario” director Denis Villeneuve helped him “quite a bit.” He described a hotel scene where he handed Blunt a gun and said his lines “really fast.”
“Denis said something that really gave me a lot of confidence — ‘take your time.’ That really helped this character. You have a tendency to talk fast because you feel like everyone [on the set] is waiting for you,” Del Toro said.
The six-foot-two actor, who played basketball in high school, was asked whether the sport had any influence on his acting.
“Playing basketball, you learn to deal with egos, how to maneuver with a group of people, teamwork, compromise and how to pick your battles,” he said. Del Toro pointed out that all of those skills were useful in making movies. “You can go to law school and become a lawyer, or go to medical school and become a doctor, but going to acting school has no guarantee of finding a job. You have to know how to deal with people.”
Malibu Film Society’s annual “Awards Season Screening Series” continues this weekend with a screening of “Truth” on Saturday, Nov. 14, “Brooklyn” on Sunday, Nov. 15, and “Youth” on Monday Nov. 16. For more information, visit malibufilmsociety.org.
