Benicio Del Toro Quotations

I don't see the world completely in black and white. Sometimes I do.

The very first things that I did, even in theater, were bad guys. They are meaty roles for the most part. With the bad guy you have more freedom to experiment and go further out than with a good guy.

It depends, because sometimes an action role can be very demanding, and sometimes a dialogue-driven character can be very demanding, and vice versa. It depends.

To be honest with you, I'd rather not be working. When you work, there are all sorts of deadlines and pressures. I like to do one thing and take my time to do the other one.

I used to play basketball and I was pretty competitive, but I was never a bad loser. I never got angry. For me it was always about doing my best and devoting myself to a challenge.

It's funny, but when I arrived in California to start college I was much more interested in becoming a surfer and cruise along in life from one beach to the next. I didn't plan out any huge career for myself.

I'm not Jack Nicholson. I'm not Brando. But I do mumble.

Because actors don't get to pick movies; movies pick the actors.

You might get some serial killers who are born with a chip missing, but for the most part I don't think anyone is born bad.

I think that the Oscar gives you some kind of guts or something, it gives you the illusion that you can do it. It's good for business.

Villains used to always die in the end. Even the monsters. Frankenstein, Dracula - you'd kill them with a stake. Now the nightmare guy comes back.

My grandfather was a lawyer, my dad was a lawyer, my mum was a lawyer, I got an uncle who's a lawyer, I got cousins that are lawyers.

Before I was ever in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes.

I don't think I could be a foot soldier. I don't know if I could take orders too good. I'm a little lazy.

I'm not saying I'm a writer, but I've been in movies for a long time, and I think I could write a script for a movie.

You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island I would need that to survive.

To me the thing with 'Grease' was that it was the first movie that as a kid I wanted to get up and do what they were doing.

Am I getting better at making choices? Well, I think I might be getting better at reading scripts.

I get more choices of things, projects, which is a blessing and a curse. I can only do one at a time. Sometimes you don't know which way to go.

I guess I rooted for the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I'm a fan myself, so when a fan does something that might be strange, I understand it.

I've liked most of the films that I've been in and those are the kinds of films I like to see.

There's a lot of Latinos right now, a lot of filmmakers and writers that are Latin too.

When you start to become a movie star it's easy to believe that you are Superman. That can fool you. That's why I prefer not to pay much attention to fame.

I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I'm not talking about acting or anything like that, I'm talking about people I admire, whether it's a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician, whatever.

As far back as I can remember, these are the first movies, the Universal horror movies where I knew the title of the film and I also knew the names of the actors in those films.

When you do a movie the clock is ticking. It's like a sport.

License to Kill' is not one of the great Bond movies.

I've always played the guy with the gun and the knife. That's how many actors start out, playing the bad guy.

Regarding green screen, green screen is really like doing some stage work. You have to make believe that there is a window, make believe that something is there that is really not there and convince the audience. It's part of acting.

I mean I like most of the films that I've seen that I've been in.

My goal as an actor has always been to reach a level where I can find a lot of interesting work, and I think I'm at that point now. The Oscar has given me a lot of recognition.

There are a lot of good actresses out there.

The iPod has changed all that because sometimes I listen to an album from beginning to end, but now I put the stuff on shuffle and have the iPod tell me what I'm listening to, especially if I'm working out.

Well, when I came to Hollywood, there were three names really of Latin actors, three or four names, maybe five. There was Raul Julia, Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, Antonio Banderas, Jimmy Smits. Now there's a lot.

Hopefully, I can play both sides of the fence. That's probably what winning the Oscar gives me, the chance to do something with a studio and do other things that I really want to do.

I trained as a theater actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.

When some people get parts, they feel they can now relax, but for me it was always the opposite. Sometimes before I do a movie or before I act out a scene, I may not sleep well the night before. If I don't know what the scene is about, I might get all worked up.

Well when I was a kid, I asked Santa Claus for some toys. Santa Claus wrote me a letter that he lost his bag. He said he'd get back to me next year.

Some roles have been with me forever

I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work.

There's something about the Oscar that gives you sort of stripes where you feel you can dare to walk into a studio like Universal and say, "Hey guys, how about an idea of me playing the wolf man?"

I mean I like most of the films that I've seen that I've been in. Those are the kind of films that I like to see. Am I getting better at making choices? Well, I think I might be getting better at reading scripts. Does that make any sense?

When I was a little kid, I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have a pet alligator.

I've had people ask me: 'How can you make a movie about a murderer? A terrorist?' What they don't understand is that I'm in support of everyone who appears on screen. I have to be. I take the position of everyone who's on screen. I'm not judging them one way or another.

It really is a pleasure to work with someone who you admire. Whatever you do in front of the camera, and I don't know what it is, but actors have this thing that you recognize someone that makes you better. When you do that, it's a great feeling.

You deal with failure - strike, strike, strike - all the time. Acting is like that. You have to have a very thick skin in a way - your hair is too dark, you're too ugly for the part, your audition wasn't good.

I've played drug dealers, all my life. I've made a career of killing people and playing all kinds of killers. The violence and drugs is portrayed in exaggeration. This is fiction. That is how I looked at it. And, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Just open a newspaper.

Before I was even in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. Rumor was that I was a junkie. I have dark circles under my eyes, deal with it.

I won and I get to scream and jump a little. But I got to go back to work tomorrow.

I trained as a theatre actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.