DANNY TREJO

Bad to the Bone
Danny Trejo, the actor nobody messes with.

Danny Trejo is good at being bad. He has made a career of playing bad guys, and is arguably the most successful villain in Hollywood. You’ve probably seen the menacing-looking Trejo roughing people up in films such as Heat, El Mariachi, From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, and Con Air. Because of his success, he has one of the most recognizable faces in all of show business. The problem is while most people instantly recognize his face, few people can put a name to his face. Fewer still know much about him. Which is a shame because Danny Trejo’s life is an incredible story. He’s a captivating individual—perhaps because unlike most of the puffcakes acting tough on the screen, Trejo has firsthand experience on the life a criminal. This probably explains why he plays bad guys so well. Of course his felonious days are long behind him. He’s a family man living a comfortable life in the suburbs of Los Angeles now, but the fact remains that he’s been to hell and back and lived to tell about it.

Danny, the story of how you got into acting is pretty remarkable. Can you share it with our readers?
It was lightning from the sky. When I got out of the joint I was a drug counselor. I had a friend who calls me up and says, “Hey, I’m thinking about using man. I think I’m gonna use.” I believe you have to try to be there for people who have addiction problems. Sometimes all you have to do is just hang out with them to help them through the tough times. So he asked me if I wanted to come over and hang out. I said, “Yeah, I’ll come over.” My friend was a PA on the set of Runaway Train. I went on the set and it was a movie about prison. I walk in and there were all these guys dressed as convicts, with tattoos. Which was funny watching these guys trying to look tough because I had just gotten out of that environment. So while I’m there, my friend says, “You wanna be an extra?” I said, “extra, what’s an extra?” He said, “you’ll make $50.” I said, “they’ll pay me 50 bucks. Sure!” Then I bumped into this guy who recognized me from prison…the movie was about boxing and he remembered that I had won the boxing championship in prison, at San Quentin. He asked what I was doing there and I told him I was an extra. He asked me if I wanted to do something bigger. He told me I’d have to act and fight against this guy. He said, “You’re going to have to act like a convict, you think you could do that?” [laughs] I said, “Yeah I think I can do that.”

You weren’t kidding.
No, I’ve been through just about every prison in the state of California.

Considering what you’ve gone through, I’m sure you’d agree that crime doesn’t pay. Yet in a weird way it sort of did pay off for you in the long run.
Yeah, it’s funny. I was hired as a consultant on armed robbery for Heat. I wasn’t supposed to be in the film. [Originally] I was just supposed to help make sure the armed robbery scenes were authentic…things went well and later they popped me into the film as part of Robert De Niro’s crew.

What was it like working with Robert De Niro?
I have a lot of respect for him. I’m a drug counselor first and foremost. Acting is my side job. We were working on Heat and at the end of the day I invited Robert to a prison I was going to speak at. He told me they still had some shots to wrap up, so I just assumed he was trying to give me the polite brush-off. I was in the prison when we get a phone call. One of the guards says, “There’s this guy at the door for you who says he’s Robert De Niro. Should we let him in?” So he actually showed up. It’s something that he didn’t have to do and I didn’t expect him to. To this day, those guys remember that.

You could sit back and enjoy your money and career and forget all of the bad times, but you haven’t. You’re still a drug counselor. Why do you do it?
I try to keep giving. I’m always telling folks in Hollywood that giving back and helping someone out is the biggest hook. It’s my biggest hook. But they don’t like to hear it.

I grew up doing all the wrong things: drugs, armed robbery. So why do I try to help others? Because I owe. I owe [for all the things that I did in my past.]
And it’s a great feeling helping people out. The other day I see this guy that I spoke to in prison at the market and he says, “Hey Danny. You spoke to us when I was locked up. I’m doing good now. I’m working, I got two kids. I’m doing good.”

When I go to prisons guys stop in their tracks. They say, “Hey! It’s that guy from Bound by Honor. Orale, you’re from La Honda! [laughs]. Right away I have their attention. You have to grab their attention and their respect. If I can reach just one guy to help him that’s what I want. That to me is the greatest high, when you can help somebody.

You speak to prisoners and encourage them to get their life straight, but then you’re in movies playing guys that do all kinds of bad things. Doesn’t that seem like a contradiction?
That’s a good point, and you know what I always tell people? I say “Remember, the bad guy always dies in the movies.” Even in Heat I died. Even Robert De Niro died. If they’d ask me to be the bad guy in a movie where I don’t die in the end then I wouldn’t do it.

Growing up did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that you’d become an actor?
Never. My goals were to be a good laborer. Back then you had two paths. You work like crazy or you go into crime. But growing up in the barrio doesn’t mean you have to go the wrong way. I know a lot of guys that grew up in the barrio that did good things. It’s not the barrio that’s the problem, but the drugs and alcohol. A big problem is also what’s missing in their life. I see guys go to prison and do really well there. They do well when someone’s screaming at them and telling them what to do. Why? Because it gives them structure. Out on the streets and at home they don’t have any structure. They can do whatever they want.

So in contrast to your own childhood you must be a strict dad.
I believe you have to be supportive and positive with kids. My son says, “Dad, I wanna be a rock star.” I say, “Alright son! [strums an air guitar] We’ll fly on jets all over the place.” I don’t say, “No son, you’ve got to be a good lawyer.”

Are people in Hollywood afraid of you?
In Hollywood all the actors want to know one thing. They always ask me, “Hey Danny, so how would I do in the joint?” I look at them and I tell, “Yeah, you’d be alright.” But what I don’t tell them is that they’d really be someone’s wife. They’d be someone’s bitch. [laughs]

Have any of those Hollywood pretty boys given you attitude?
No, but a funny thing happened when I was on the set of From Dusk ‘Til Dawn. There was this guy mad-dogging me. He just kept staring at me like he didn’t like me or something. I tried to ignore it, but I’ll only ignore so much. He keeps staring at me and mad-dogging me until finally I walk over to him and say, “Hey what’s your problem?” He says, “Hey ju gat a problem?” doing his Tony Montana from Scarface imitation. Everybody just started busting up. The guy was George Clooney. He was just setting me up, and everyone was just waiting to see how I would react. The thing is I didn’t know who George Clooney was back then. George is a really funny guy, really down to earth, cool guy.

Speaking of From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, you got to see Salma do her famously sexy dance. You’re a lucky man, did you ask her out?
It’s hard to think of her in a sexual way because I know her and she is one of the nicest, kind, sweet genuine persons that I know.

How do you feel about these other up-and-coming younger Latinos playing tough guy roles? Do you see them as your competition?
No. I see all these guys coming up, trying to be like me and I think, Orale, the more that make it, the better.

I’ve heard that you refused to work on American Me with Edward James Olmos.
It was a bad idea. It wasn’t cool what they did. They asked me to do it, but I said no. Eddie sent me the script to read, but I said nope. You can’t do that. You’re misrepresenting people at the highest levels of La Eme. If you made a movie about the boy scouts and you said some bad things about the people at the top, you’d get sued. People died because of things in that movie.

Whoa! Maybe I should change topics here before someone from La Eme pays me a visit. You have that cool tattoo on your chest. Who’s the girl in the tattoo?
My tattoo was voted the number one most recognizable tattoo in the world by International Tattoo magazine. It’s a tattoo of my wife. Man I love that woman.

So you’ve got some international fame?
Man, I went to South Africa and I was with one of my black friends. I went down there and these guys were like, “Orale holmes,” and acting like big time pachucos. My friend said that I went thousands of miles to be with my people. I had to come all this way to see these guys act Mexican.