Madrid (EFE).- The Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro, Platinum Honor Award 2023, has assured this Friday in Madrid that “in Hollywood most of the stories are not designed for minorities.”
In a massive press conference prior to receiving the Platinum of Honor, which he will collect tomorrow at a gala at the IFEMA Madrid Municipal Palace, Del Toro has reviewed some of the milestones in his career that have made him one of the great talents Hispanics in Hollywood.
Winner of awards such as the Oscar, the Golden Globe, the Bafta, the Berlin Silver Bear, the Palme d’Or at Cannes or Donostia, to which he now adds the Platinum Honor of Ibero-American cinema, the actor has explained how he managed to overcome the stereotypes to which Latinos in Hollywood seem condemned.
“At some point I decided that if I was going to interpret stereotypes, I was going to do it looking for humanity and complexity in the character,” said the protagonist of “Traffic” (2000), “The Usual Suspects” (1995) or “21 Grams” ( 2003), who has thanked the receptiveness of the directors, producers and scriptwriters with whom he has worked.
“Getting more involved also meant assuming more responsibility, it’s the path in which I, without being a writer or director, as an actor got involved and looked for a space,” he declared.
stereotypes exist
In his opinion, the stereotypes exist “because the characters who represent minorities are not studied in depth,” perhaps because there are not “enough writers who write the history of Hispanics in the United States.”
The actor was confident that this will change little by little. “Hispanics within the United States have to come out and make their own history, maybe now there are more opportunities, before making a movie was almost like going to the moon, now you can do it almost with a telephone.”
Del Toro, whose beginnings were on television, with roles in “Miami Vice” and “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story”, believes that over the years he has evolved, created his own style and has become more involved in projects, among which who has mentioned the last film he has shot for Netflix, “Reptile”, a debut film in which, in addition to acting, he has worked as a producer.
Asked about the mistakes that he believes he has made in his past, he said that he did not worry about it. “There are things that one does when young because he does not have organized energy, sometimes I have said no to things out of rebellion, without thinking about them,” he admitted.
Today he tries not only to get more involved but to be more in the present. “I’m a father, that has changed me a lot, I see a lot of dolls,” he joked. “As an actor I have had the opportunity to work with excellent directors, some of the best in the world, and fantastic actors as well, and like SpongeBob, one absorbs and learns.”
Among those actors and directors, he mentioned Javier Bardem and Bigas Luna, with whom he filmed “Huevos de Oro” three decades ago in Miami. He has recalled that at that time he was filming another movie in Pennsylvania, in winter, and that he escaped to shoot his sequences.
“I couldn’t catch the sun and I had to put on a hat,” he pointed out. He also stressed that his father was excited that he participated in that film, which was a certain relief for him.
“When I started as an actor, my family was not very happy that I had decided that, now it is a little different,” he stressed. “When that movie came out, my father liked it, maybe because I made it in Spanish.”
Another of the directors he has referred to has been Oliver Stone with whom he made “Savages” (2012). “He has immense talent, he has made many of us in Hollywood feel brave, because he has made very brave and very political cinema (…), he is one of the great American directors.”
Regarding the Platinum of Honor distinction, he said he felt “very honored” to follow in the footsteps of actors such as Antonio Banderas, Edward James Olmos, Ricardo Darín or Carmen Maura who received it in previous editions.
The Platino Awards, organized by the Spanish copyright entity EGEDA and the Ibero-American audiovisual federation FIPCA celebrate their tenth edition this Saturday at a gala in which “Argentina, 1985” starts as a favorite with 14 nominations.
Del Toro will collect his award during that ceremony, which will also feature performances such as Colombian Sebastián Yatra and the next Spanish representative of Eurovision, Blanca Paloma.
The entry Benicio del Toro: In Hollywood, stories are not designed for minorities was first published in EFE Noticias.