Who isBenicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez? The entertainment and acting world knows him as
Benicio del Toro, is a
Puerto Rican actor and
film producer. His awards include the
Academy Award,
Golden Globe,
Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award and
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award. He is known for his roles as Fred Fenster in
The Usual Suspects, Javier Rodríguez in
Traffic (his Oscar-winning role),
Jack 'Jackie Boy' Rafferty in
Sin City,
Dr. Gonzo in
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Franky Four Fingers in
Snatch,
Che Guevara in
Che, and most recently for his role as
Lawrence Talbot in
The Wolfman. He is the third Puerto Rican to win an
Academy Award. Benicio is currently expecting his first child with
Rod Stewart's daughter
Kimberly Stewart , although the two are not dating.
Early life
Benicio del Toro was born February 19, 1967 and grew up in
Santurce, Puerto Rico, a district of
San Juan. He is the son of Gusta gomez del Toro Bermúdez and Fausta Genoveva Sánchez Rivera, who were both
lawyers.
[1][2] He has an older brother, Gustavo, who is a
pediatric oncologist at the
Mount Sinai Medical Center in
New York City.
[3][4] He is a cousin of Puerto Rican basketball player
Carlos Arroyo, currently signed with the
Boston Celtics.
[citation needed] Del Toro's childhood nicknames were "Skinny Bin Benny" and "Beno." He was raised a
Roman Catholic[5][6] and attended
Academia del Perpetuo Socorro (The Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help), a Roman Catholic school in
Miramar, Puerto Rico.
[7][8] When he was nine years old, his mother died of
hepatitis.
[3] At age 12, del Toro moved with his father and two brothers to
Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, where he was enrolled at the
Mercersburg Academy. He spent his adolescence and attended high school there.
[9]
After graduation, del Toro followed the advice of his father and pursued a degree in business at the
University of California, San Diego.
[9] 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 City.
[9]
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 (the kid sitting on the car). Work in films followed, beginning with his debut in
Big Top Pee-wee and in the
007 film
Licence to Kill,
[9] 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 (1994),
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.
[9] 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 Puerto Rican 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.
[9] The
surrealistic film, directed by
Terry Gilliam, has earned a
cult following over the years. Returning from a 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.
[9]
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.
[9]
In 2003, del Toro appeared in two films:
The Hunted, co-starring
Tommy Lee Jones, and the drama
21 Grams, 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 then appeared 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.
In 2008, del Toro was awarded the
Prix d'interpretation masculine (or Best Actor Award) for his characterization of
Che Guevara in
The Argentine and
Guerrilla (together known as
Che).
[10] During his acceptance speech del Toro dedicated his award "to the man himself, Che Guevara" along with director
Steven Soderbergh.
[11] Del Toro was also awarded a 2009
Goya Award as the best Spanish
Lead Actor for his depiction of Che.
[12] Actor
Sean Penn, who won an
Oscar for his role in
Milk, remarked that he was surprised and disappointed that
Che and del Toro were not also up for any
Academy Award nominations. During his acceptance speech for the
Best Actor's trophy at the
Screen Actors Guild Awards Penn expressed his dismay stating, "The fact that there aren't crowns on Soderbergh's and Del Toro's heads right now, I don't understand ... that is such a sensational movie,
Che."
[13] For the final portions of the film (shown here), del Toro shed 35 pounds to show how ill Guevara had become near the end of his life in the jungles of
Bolivia.
[14]
Del Toro starred in and produced the remake of
Lon Chaney, Jr.'s classic cult film
The Wolf Man.
[15]
Academy Award
In 2001, del Toro won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in
Traffic, becoming the fourth living Oscar winner whose winning role was a character who speaks predominantly in a foreign language (most of del Toro's dialogue in
Traffic is in Spanish). Del Toro is also the third Puerto Rican actor to win an Oscar, after
Jose Ferrer and
Rita Moreno.
[9] 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, who is not of Puerto Rican descent). In his acceptance speech, del Toro thanked the people of both
Nogales, Arizona and
Nogales, Sonora and dedicated his award to them. In 2004, Benicio del Toro was again nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, for his performance in the film
21 Grams.
Filmography
Films
Short films
Television series
Awards
This list includes some awards of Benicio del Toro:
Personal Life
On April 11, 2011, Benicio del Toro's publicist announced that he is expecting a child with Rod Stewart's daughter
Kimberly Stewart although the two are not a couple .
[16
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Who is Brittany Ann Daniel? The entertainment and acting world knows her as Brittany Daniel, she is an American television and film actress. She is the twin sister of actress and photographer Cynthia Daniel.[1] She is best known for her portrayal of Kelly Pitts on the CW/BET comedy-drama series The Game, and Candice in the 2010 science fiction film Skyline, and for her role as Jessica Wakefield on the 1990's teen show Sweet Valley High.
Daniel was born March 17, 1976 in Gainesville, Florida, the daughter of Carolyn and C. B. Daniel.[2] Brittany is five minutes older than her twin sister Cynthia. The two also have an older brother, Brad (born in 1968).[3] By age 11, both girls began modeling and appeared in Seventeen and YM. They first began acting in the 1990s with an appearance in the sitcom The New Leave It to Beaver. In 1992, when she was sixteen, Daniel won the role of Mila Rosnovsky on the short-lived syndicated teen drama Swan's Crossing. She then moved to New York to film the series. After high school, she landed the role of Jessica Wakefield in the television series Sweet Valley High (sister Cynthia portrayed Jessica's twin sister, Elizabeth) along with a Doublemint gum campaign. During the run of Sweet Valley High, the girls made their film debut in the drama The Basketball Diaries (1995) alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.[4]
After Sweet Valley High was canceled in 1997, Daniel continued acting in films and television series including a stint on Dawson's Creek in 1999 and a role in the TBS television movie On Hostile Ground the following year. In 2001, she appeared as David Spade's love interest, Brandy, in Joe Dirt. In 2002, Brittany played one of the lead characters in the short-lived FOX series That '80s Show. In 2002, she played Eric Forman's cousin Penny on That 70's Show. She also appeared on the show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as a transsexual named Carmen. In 2004, she teamed up with the Wayans Brothers for their films White Chicks and Little Man.[5] That same year, she appeared in the VH1 television movie Totally Awesome before landing a role in The CW Television Network's half hour comedy The Game.[6] In February 2010, she was cast in the Brothers Strause thriller Skyline;[7] the film was released on November 12th 2010.
On September 24, 2008, Daniel's father, C.B. Daniel, died in Gainesville, Florida from cancer. [8]
