Video Exclusive: Benicio del Toro talks Che and Wolf Man
The thesp on taking on Guevara and donning the monster makeup.
Benicio Del Toro is perhaps Puerto Rico's most well-known acting export, having starred in some of the 90s' most memorable films. Through The Usual Suspects, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Traffic, Del Toro's performances have been powerful, emotional and surreal at turns.
But perhaps his greatest acting challenge faced him when he took on the role of Ernesto "Che" Guevara for what would become a four-hour epic tale of the iconic revolutionary's struggles in Cuba and Bolivia. At its premiere in Cannes, the result of Del Toro's work landed him a Best Actor nod, and as the season progresses, tongues are wagging in his favour for Oscar glory.
On the promotional trail for the movie, RT caught up with Del Toro to learn more about taking on Che, and what it was like slipping into Rick Baker's makeup to play The Wolf Man in this year's upcoming blockbuster.
In the UK, Che Part One is out now. Che Part Two arrives on February 20th. In the US, both parts are released on 24th January.
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| Movie: | The Usual Suspects |
| Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | |
| Traffic | |
| The Wolfman | |
| Che, Part Two | |
| Che | |
| Celeb: | Benicio Del Toro |
(1-14 of 14 posts) | Reply
on Jan 04 2009 04:25 PM I wish you would have asked if Castro had any involvment. It's nice to know that these works of passion still exist. The odds on it making any money seem slim to me, but, who knows. . . I'm also impressed they aren't cutting it to 3 1/2 hours, then doing a 4 hour DVD. I was able to sit through each LOTR Director's version without a problem. (Reply to this) |
on Jan 04 2009 04:45 PM In reply to this comment (#2229014) I think I read that Soderbergh talked to him but I may be wrong, I know he said he is looking forward to showing him the film and getting his thoughts. LOL I remember Soderbegh also said that Castro likes to pause films a lot to talk about scenes and I picture that really just being a very bad day- a 4 1/2 hour movie plus listening to Fidel Castro while pausing it and having to watch a film with Castro. I am really looking forward to this, I think it will probably be a great epic but I would be really pissed if it ends up being an epic bore but I doubt that since I like Soderbergh quite a bit and I could watch Del Toro in almost anything, and CHE is a great story and he is a really interesting guy. So I am really looking forward to this. Does anyone know its release date plans? I remember I was in NY about a month ago and I remember seeing that it was playing there, so is it going to comcast on demand or is it expanding because I have heard different things?!? Also WOLFMAN looks pretty good so I am looking forward to that. (Reply to this) |
on Jan 04 2009 07:02 PM People talk as if Castro and Che were heroes of some sort. Unreal. Murdered thousands who didn't agree with them. Cuba is a horrible place to live. I just don't get it. Too many Daily Kosites around here. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 04 2009 07:07 PM In reply to this comment (#2229545) The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system%u2014the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become %u2026"%u2014 and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy%u2014a tragedy on the hugest scale. (Reply to this) |
on Jan 04 2009 07:35 PM Whats next a Hitler biopic? This is morally disgusting. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 04 2009 08:52 PM In reply to this comment (#2229596) Come on guys lets not get into are politics, lets just talk about how it looks good or how good the reviews are or something! (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 04 2009 09:47 PM I'm going to dip my toe into the potential cesspool that seems to be forming here and just say that movies are supposed to be about interesting subjects. They are supposed to elicit a reaction from you, either good or bad. Are you guys really saying you only want films about people you agree with and don't want to be challenged at all? And I'm convinced that TheCaptain is really doing some sort of Andy Kaufman-esque high comedy, because that comment works on so many levels. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 04 2009 10:05 PM So arendr is in support for a Hitler Biopic. Then a Stalin movie, then Pol Pot, them Mao. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 05 2009 08:18 AM Yep. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 05 2009 10:27 AM Hell, I'm in for a biopic about Nixon. Oh wait. . . How about about a biopic about murderers of innocent people? Hmmm. . . How about a biopic about organized The one film coming out that seems a bit repulsive to me is the biopic based on the life of the Boston hitman who worked with the FBI and organized crime, is somehow in the witness protection program, and seemingly, will profit monetarily from the movie. The only problem I'd have of movies based on "bad" people is when those very same "bad" people profit. Otherwise, it's called history. If we ignore the "bad" people there'll probably be even more of them. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 06 2009 10:48 PM The captain of team stupidity is calling a biopic on Che, "morally disgusting"? hahahahahahaha. Look who's talking? One of those kettle calling the pot black moments. Ah! the irony of life. LMAO!! The movie looks good and the acting seems solid. My only fear is that it might be borderline melodramatic. And for those pissed about making a biopic on Che even though he "murdered thousands", your complaints are baseless. Like it or not, Che is a memorable historical figure so his story deserves to be told, be it good or bad. It's history a history lesson on celluloid and its very much relevant. That brings me to another fear: historical inaccuracies. Hollywood is known to reshape and re-size history to fit its audience *cough* The Last King of Scotland *cough* so I doubt Che will be an honest account of Che's life. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 08 2009 07:20 PM Until you guys realize that our friend The Captain is doing this all in jest, I'm going to be laughing along with him. It's obviously irreverent and intended to annoy. (Reply to this) |
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on Jan 11 2009 09:37 AM What's annoying isn't that they made a movie about him. It's that Che movies always intend to make him seem as though he was some kind of hero. (which he wasn't). If these movies were historically correct, then fine, but movies like "Diarios de la Motocicleta" (which was so beautifully made but gave such beauty to the life of someone who was responsible for so much evil) makes impresionable kids see him as a role model which he shouldn't be. (Reply to this) |
on Jul 14 2009 11:04 AM is this movie (che) ever gonna come out? (Reply to this) |
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