Oscars<\/a>, including best picture and best supporting actor for Del Toro and Penn. The last time Del Toro was nominated for an Oscar was more than two decades ago, for 21 Grams. Three years before that, he took home best supporting actor honors for Traffic.<\/p>\n\n\tHe insists he entered One Battle with modest expectations. \u201cI\u2019m in the movie for a limited amount of time,\u201d he says. \u201cI came in to get Leo from point A to point D.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s an honor,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s huge. But it\u2019s very surprising. There\u2019s something about it that makes me want to not believe it. And I\u2019m trying to enjoy this wave.\u201d He keeps returning to that word: wave. Not campaign, not fray. Wave. Something that lifts you whether you deserve it or not. Something you\u2019d best just give yourself over to.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned about it is, let it rip. It\u2019s beyond my control. There\u2019s nothing I can do,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think the movie puts a mirror to where we are now,\u201d he says of the response to One Battle, which moves with breakneck speed through a world of desperate migrants, parents, children and a father trying to reunite with his daughter.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSensei represents the helper,\u201d he continues. \u201cThat human side of all of us. Innocent until proven guilty. You see someone in need, and you help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tHermes suit, shirt; Paul Smith tie; Del Toro\u2019s own jewelry.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Myles Hendrik<\/p>\n
\n\t***<\/p>\n
\n\tIn an early draft of One Battle After Another, Sensei participated along with Leo\u2019s character, ex-revolutionary Bob Ferguson, in a double murder inside his dojo, setting off a chain reaction of cover-ups and escape. Del Toro balked. Not because of the violence, but because of what he felt was an absence of logic.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s my relationship with Leo until that point in the film?\u201d he remembers scribbling in the margins. \u201cI teach his daughter. I shake his hand. He writes me a check. I deposit the check. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTo commit murder on his behalf felt false. \u201cIf I kill somebody in my dojo,\u201d he reasoned, \u201cthat\u2019s another movie entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro\u2019s objection was practical. If you shoot someone in the head in a confined space, there is blood, cleanup and bodies.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of mess to clean, especially if you shoot someone in the head with a rifle,\u201d he says, almost clinically. \u201cNow we\u2019re going to have to clean it. We\u2019re going to have to clean it fast. We\u2019re going to have to get rid of the corpse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film would instantly become something else: a logistics thriller about evidence disposal. At one point, even the notion of blowing up the dojo using controlled demolition was explored. None of it made sense to Del Toro. More than that, it added up to what he felt was a lesser film.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBenny planted this idea with me and Leo,\u201d Anderson explains in an email. \u201cIt was a very good idea that led to significantly more dramatic possibilities with his character and the overall shape of the film.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor example, the section set in Baktan Cross, a fictional border town set in the real El Paso, culminates in a raid there. That sequence had long frustrated Anderson.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt was constantly changing and never found its target. Until Benny suggested the \u2018Latino Harriet Tubman situation,\u2019 \u201d the director says, referring to a pivot that made Sensei the head of an ambitious migrant smuggling operation. \u201cThat made everything fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tInstead of triggering violence, Del Toro suggested Sensei would quietly move families through danger. His character would therefore become a protector rather than an instigator. The dojo, meanwhile, would become a refuge.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBeing in El Paso, at the center of immigration, gave us so much material and local talent to work with,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cIt became the centerpiece of the film and certainly the best time I\u2019ve ever had going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe rewrite recalibrated the center of the film\u2019s moral gravity. Sensei stopped serving as a plot accelerant and started taking on grander thematic relevance. He became, in a quiet and unshowy way, the film\u2019s moral compass.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro attacks every role that way: script in one hand, a felt-tipped pen in the other. \u201cYou\u2019re an interpreter,\u201d he says of his approach to acting. \u201cIf you don\u2019t understand the writer, you cannot do it.\u201d Once he understands the story, he starts asking questions \u2014 dozens, even hundreds of them. What happens next? Where did the suitcase go? Why is he angry?<\/p>\n
\n\tAnderson says he wrote the role of Sensei for Del Toro, who had worked with the director on 2014\u2019s Inherent Vice. When scheduling conflicts arose for One Battle, Anderson delayed production three months to accommodate Del Toro\u2019s availability. \u201cI have never done this before,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cBut this was a very good use of our budget. The question I had at the time was, \u2018How can we not wait for Benicio?\u2019 There simply wasn\u2019t any world where I made the film without him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tThom Sweeney pea coat.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Myles Hendrik<\/p>\n
\n\t***<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro arrived fresh off the Berlin set of The Phoenician Scheme with 10 days between projects. He attended his daughter\u2019s sixth-grade graduation, then stepped into a fast-moving production already running full speed down the track. The transition was abrupt.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI had 10 days to unpack and pack,\u201d he says of the 2024 shoot. \u201cUnpack my character in Wes\u2019 movie and then get dressed like Sensei and just \u2026 go. You don\u2019t have time to adjust. If you want to jump on a carousel, you generally want time to run and catch up and then jump in. There was none of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHis first day filming was inside a real store in El Paso. There were no actors behind the counter, just the family who owned it. Anderson put DiCaprio and Del Toro in charge of communicating with the non-actors. \u201cYou guys are in charge,\u201d Del Toro remembers Anderson telling them. \u201cThere\u2019s a family here. They own the store.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro went behind the counter and opened the register.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAnd there\u2019s real money from the store. And I\u2019m taking money out of there. And the lady is sitting right next to me. She\u2019s looking at me like this,\u201d he says, widening his eyes. \u201cAnd then I give it back when Paul called \u2018cut.\u2019 But that was her money, not prop money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe immediacy, the verity, the diving into the deep end \u2014 all of it created an instant connection among Del Toro, DiCaprio and the locals. It also realigned Del Toro and DiCaprio \u2014 megawatt stars who\u2019d been industry pals since sharing the cover of Vanity Fair\u2018s 1996 Hollywood issue \u2014 in a deeper and more meaningful way.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSuddenly there\u2019s this connection between the non-actors and Leo and myself. And Leo and I, we talked a little bit about it. We were in charge here. This was our show. These non-actors were looking to us to know what to do,\u201d Del Toro recalls. \u201cAnd so for Leo and I, our heads instantly pointed in the same direction \u2014 it was a bonding moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPenn, who plays the villainous Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, attended a special screening with Del Toro and DiCaprio. The program opened with a reel of career highlights for each of the actors. Penn found himself astounded as he relived each performance.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro evokes those stony screen giants of yore, towering tributes to American grit and masculinity like Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The last two were his late father\u2019s favorites.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a part of you that never leaves the theater seat where you were 17,\u201d Penn says. \u201cYou\u2019re watching your heroes up there. And then, suddenly, you\u2019re sitting next to people who\u2019ve become that for someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tVince leather jacket; Brioni silk tee; Del Toro\u2019s own jewelry.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Myles Hendrik<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tHerm\u00e8s suit, shirt; Paul\u202fSmith tie.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Myles Hendrik<\/p>\n
\n\t***<\/p>\n
\n\tGrowing up in the Del Toro family in Puerto Rico, there was an expectation of becoming a lawyer. Benicio\u2019s grandfather practiced law, his father practiced it, and his mother passed the bar.<\/p>\n
\n\tBenicio was a rambunctious and imaginative kid. Then, when he was 9, his mother died of hepatitis.<\/p>\n
\n\tNine is an unforgiving age. It\u2019s old enough to remember the texture of a voice, the smell of someone\u2019s hair, but too young to build any real architecture for grief.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m still dealing with it,\u201d Del Toro says. \u201cI had my mother for nine years. What is crazy about losing a parent at that age is that there hasn\u2019t been one day in my life that I haven\u2019t thought about her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tYears later, Del Toro had the opportunity to meet one of his heroes: the Japanese director Kaneto Shindo, whose classics include The Naked Island and Onibaba.<\/p>\n
\n\tShindo was 96 when Del Toro met him. Del Toro did background research and learned the director had lost his own mother at age 9, just as Del Toro had. He also learned Shindo, at 72, made a movie about her.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAnd so I asked him,\u201d Del Toro says, \u201cbecause we understood each other regarding that particular scar. I asked, \u2018Did that help deal with that pain? To make the film. Did it cure something? Did it repair something?\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
\n\tShindo sat quietly for several seconds.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAbsolutely nothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro laughs softly when he retells it, not because it\u2019s funny, but because it\u2019s just so definitive. When asked what he remembers of his mother, he says, \u201cI remember everything.\u201d She was strict, loving, committed to education. And in a line that lands like a joke and then settles into something more profound, he says, \u201cI think some of my best acting was with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro\u2019s father remarried after his mother died, and Del Toro describes that period as chaotic. He was energetic, restless, distracted, the kind of kid who could disappear for a few hours and return just before the consequences arrived. He has a brother, two years older. The loss made them closer, he says, but they adapted differently.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMy brother, Gustavo, was a little bit more calm,\u201d he says. \u201cHe would read more than I did. I didn\u2019t read much when I was young. I was too distracted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tGustavo, a doctor, ultimately settled in Brooklyn, where he is now chief medical officer of a large hospital. Benicio lives in Los Angeles, where he co-parents his daughter with Kimberly Stewart, daughter of Rod. The two never married, nor were they ever involved in any sort of public relationship. Beyond that, details are scant; in a coup for today\u2019s Hollywood, Del Toro maintains an iron grip on his personal life.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt 13, he was sent to boarding school in Pennsylvania. The move was described as opportunity; his godmother hoped it would lead to law school. It registered instead as a rupture. The island\u2019s humidity gave way to a cold that bit through moth-eaten sweaters. Spanish receded into the background.<\/p>\n
\n\tPuerto Rico did not shrink into memory; it simply remained a faint pulse beating beneath everything new. When Del Toro returns to the island now, about once a year, he is hit with a tidal wave of feeling. He resists the suggestion that Puerto Rican identity and American identity must exist in opposition. \u201cYou can be both,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe talks about Puerto Rico\u2019s status with the bluntness of someone who has explained it too many times and still manages to find it absurd.<\/p>\n
\n\tPuerto Rico has been part of the United States since 1917, he notes, and under U.S. control since 1898. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. And yet, if you reside on the island, you cannot vote for president. You have no representation in Congress.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat makes no sense,\u201d he says, flatly.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro enrolled in business school at UC San Diego. Midway through his first semester, he was cast in a production of a one-act play called Action by Sam Shepard. He was entranced by Shepard\u2019s lean, volatile writing and the wounded masculinity at its core. \u201cSo I changed my major to drama,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s when I kind of burned the ships, so to speak. I just said, \u2018That\u2019s it. I\u2019m going to be an actor.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tComing into the professional acting world, he says, there were stereotypes. If you were Latino, you were offered shorthand. And you took the jobs because you needed to work.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBut my attitude has always been, I should be able to play anything,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd if they all have to have a last name that ends with an \u2018O,\u2019 I\u2019ll make them different. Because Latinos are not all the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tTodd Snyder suit, shirt; Lardini tie; Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses; Doucal\u2019s boots; Del Toro\u2019s jewelry. Car from Hollywood Classic Cars.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Myles Hendrik<\/p>\n
\n\t***<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro is a dad. His role as the protector in One Battle feels less theoretical in that light. When asked whether Sensei\u2019s instinct to shield a father and daughter connects to his own life, he pauses, reluctant to speak of his daughter. He pivots to something more universal.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s something about the altruism of humans,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen someone risks their life to save someone else, we clap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe talks about footage we see constantly now, on our phones, of strangers jumping into danger to save someone they do not know. A child pulled from a current. A person rescued from a burning car. A stranger shielding another stranger from harm.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe all clap,\u201d he says. \u201cWe make him a hero immediately. A star. Go talk to Oprah. Do the tour.\u201d He pauses. \u201cThey don\u2019t do it for the reward. It\u2019s an instinct. It\u2019s a human thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s Sensei. The Good Samaritan. And in a film that\u2019s almost oppressively dark, his instinct becomes the beacon. The signal the movie hasn\u2019t given up on people. Because Sensei hasn\u2019t given up on them.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think in the last months, there\u2019s been a lot of senseis out there,\u201d Del Toro says.<\/p>\n
\n\tJust then, a woman loudly holding court at a nearby table narrates something about venture capital or divorce, maybe both. Del Toro is shaken out of his thought.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe doesn\u2019t glare. He studies the woman with anthropological interest.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat lady,\u201d he says quietly.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro leans back in the banquette, eyes half-closed, listening the way he listens to everything.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOcean waves,\u201d he says suddenly.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnother burst from the neighboring table. A laugh too loud for the room.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro shrugs.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOcean waves. Ocean waves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe nods. Stands. Adjusts the Oakland A\u2019s cap. The lobby is still humming. The loud woman is still narrating her own importance.<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro slips out without competing.<\/p>\n
\n\tOcean waves.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tHermes suit, shirt; Paul Smith tie; Del Toro\u2019s own jewelry.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Myles Hendrik<\/p>\n
\n\tThis story appeared in the Feb. 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMeet him at the lobby entrance at 1 p.m. You\u2019ll recognize him :)\u201d That\u2019s the only instruction. At…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10546,104367,236,88,89051,29506,85403,26320,16821],"class_list":{"0":"post-486373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-benicio-del-toro","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-one-battle-after-another","13":"tag-oscars","14":"tag-oscars-2026","15":"tag-thr-cover-story","16":"tag-thr-original-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}