Benicio Del Toro Biography

Benicio Del Toro was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico and grew up in Pennsylvania. He became interested in acting while attending the University of California, San Diego and subsequently studied at The Stella Adler Conservatory under the tutelage of Arthur Mendoza.

made his motion picture debut in John Glen's Licence to Kill opposite Timothy Dalton's James Bond. He has earned critical accolades for his performances ever since, beginning with back‐to‐back Independent Spirit Awards® for Best Supporting Actor in Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects and Julian Schnabel's Basquiat.

performance in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award and Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for Best Actor, and a Golden Globe, BAFTA Award, and Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor. His work in Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s, 21 Grams led to another Oscar nomination, and he won the Audience Award for Best Actor at the Venice International Film Festival.

re‐teamed with Soderbergh to take the title role in Che (part 1&2), a biography of Che Guevara, for which he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival and at the Goya Awards in Spain.

Del Toro’s works also include director Robert Rodriquez’s film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel Sin City, Peter Weir's Fearless, George Huang's Swimming With Sharks, Abel Ferrara's The Funeral, Guy Ritchie's Snatch, Sean Penn's The Indian Runner and The Pledge, Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun, William Friedkin's The Hunted, Susanne Bier’s Things We Lost in the Fire, and Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Most recently, he starred in a remake of The Wolfman with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt.