The ever flexible Benicio Del Toro pops up this week in a new version of horror classic 'The Wolfman'. In the past few years we've seen him in comic book movie 'Sin City' and we've seen him as Che Guevara in Steven Soderberg's 'Che' - two roles that couldn't be more different from each other. After going hairy in The Wolfman he's going to visit the comedy classic 'The Three Stooges' in a modern day remake. Below we talk to the Hollywood ledgend about the diversity of his movie roles.
Q: What made you want to be a part of The Wolfman movie?
BDT: "Since I was a kid I loved those movies. And then my manager saw a poster of the original Wolfman and said he was going to Universal to talk to them. The project started rolling and now here we are."
Q: Why choose to remake The Wolfman and not one of the other classics?
BDT: "Why not? We had talented people willing to jump in and give it their all. Every factor of making the movie was great. And the money was right! (Laughs)"
Q: How much time did you spend in the make-up chair each day to become The Wolfman?
BDT: "I don't know. Everybody always talks about how long it is. I was working with the best in the world arguably and I loved the look they created. So it really didn't matter to me how long it took. I've been wearing the make-up of The Wolfman since I was a kid anyway! (Laughs)
Q: You listen to a lot of music while you're on set, don't you?
BDT: "I like listening to music all the time! I love the effect it has on you because for me it can change how you feel. I have a tendency to feel lonely, and music can pull me out of those dark moods in a flash. It's a beautiful experience for me. Some songs can just take me to a different place and it helps get rid of this empty feeling I get sometimes. It's kind of like instant pain relief for me. But I agree music can get you in the mood for a character and I certainly used it for The Wolfman."
Q: Does success and an Oscar make your life simpler or more complicated?
BDT: "Oh, it's a lot more complicated and I've never felt that life was easy to begin with! I had a lot of fun though as an unemployed actor and I'm still having fun even when sometimes I think I'm working too much and not being able to enjoy my life as much. That's the biggest trade-off you make when you've reached a certain level and you have more opportunities. I feel like I need to keep a certain distance between my work and my life so that I don't feel that I'm just working for the sake of working but because I love the process and it's enriching my life and making me explore myself more deeply. The worst kind of experience I've encountered as an actor is when you don't feel the film is anything more than a job and you feel like you're prostituting yourself. That's why I turn down a lot of stuff - I would really hate putting myself in the position where I would hate coming to the set. Fortunately, that's very rarely been the case."
Q: How has your success as an actor affected your personal life in terms of the celebrity effect?
BDT: "I haven't let it affect my life very much. Sometimes it can be annoying to see your name linked romantically to a woman you've never had a relationship with or maybe never even spent more than five minutes with. But it's not a big issue at all with me. I still live pretty much the same way I've always lived - which isn't that exciting at all! (Smiles)"
Q: Has it affected your dating habits?
BDT: "It makes you a little more careful because you know that a lot of the attention focused on you is attracting people to you in maybe an unreal or artificial way. I haven't had a good track record in terms of my relationships because I'm into doing my own thing and I like having a lot of time to be by myself and read and be kind of in my own world. So that's often not easy for women to accept and I can understand that. But I've learned to be more giving of myself in general over the last few years and it's made things less complicated in some ways."
Q: Some women have described you as a wild man in your younger days in Hollywood. Are you still that way?
BDT: "(Laughs) I think I've calmed down a bit! Your reputation tends to get exaggerated as an actor because you're always getting photographed here and there with different women and that becomes the basis for the gossip that goes with that. There's always a certain amount of pleasure that comes with the chase even though you know in the back of your head that you want the emotional security that comes with a long-term relationship. But that's been the hardest thing for me. You may know that you want that great and deep love but you're not sure if you're ready or cut out to handle it and it always hurts so much when relationships fall apart. Maybe you've got to want to go through that process before it's going to happen."
Q: Your family wanted you to be a lawyer. And your older brother is a doctor. What drew you to acting?
BDT: "I never thought about becoming a lawyer but I never hated the idea of becoming a lawyer, either. It always appeared to me as if lawyers who litigate in court do something very similar to what an actor has to do. The way I look at it, a lawyer has to convince people and, in a way, I have to do the same. But no one in my family did any acting, singing, or dancing. Nothing in the arts. But I knew I had to become someone. Actually, becoming someone is not the thing. It's to find something I really liked. And I got lucky. I fell in love with what I do, and when you do that, nothing else matters. Rain, shine, you're OK. Everybody has the same dream, you know. The American dream is a global dream. The pursuit of happiness, freedom, whatever."
Q: Was your family disappointed when you told them you wanted to act?
BDT: "My family saw acting as a very strange thing. A career without a future. They would say that there was no way to make a living as an actor. They would repeat: ‘A TV ad here, a TV ad there and then what?' So it was hard in the beginning, because my family would not approve of my career choice. The bottom line is that I survived thanks to the fact that there are many ways of finding food in America. To this day I don't think my dad is really convinced about it. He's always going, ‘You get up at 11 a.m. every day. If you got up at 8 a.m. and went to school, you could study law, little by little. You could be a great lawyer.' I tell my dad that I'll study a bit of law when I have to play a lawyer in a movie."
Q: How did you get involved as an actor in the first place?
BDT: "It started with my wanting to get out of Pennsylvania, be hip, and hang out in Hawaiian shirts in California. I wanted to be a surfer and California was the exact opposite of Pennsylvania. I wanted to paint and I also took an acting class. I got involved in some college productions and then I got cast in a minor Sam Shepard play and to take the part I had to switch my university major from business to the arts. Then I did this play called Laura. We got invited to the Shakespeare festival. That summer I auditioned for Circle in the Square theatre in New York which is how I ended up in New York City and sleeping on my cousin's sofa."
Q: Did your father know what you were doing?
BDT: "I started lying to my dad. I told him I was getting college credit for my performance in Circle on the Square. I came back to L.A. and met up with an agent and I found out I could get a scholarship at Stella Adler's acting school. I actually did scenes with her. I have everything written down but I ain't gonna give you that. It's my secret. (Laughs) At that time my idea of acting was to scream and punch things. She told me, anyone can do that. It was all about interpretation according to her. I got the point."
Q: Do you still get as much of a kick out of acting today as you did maybe ten years ago?
BDT: "Oh, yeah! This is a great life. You get to be creative, you get to work with creative people, and you can get very well paid for enjoying your work. Most people don't have that kind of luck and I feel very blessed for being able to do something that I love. 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. Now that I see that I have this career and it's worked out for me, it still feels like I'm surfing, only that it's on a different level. I feel very free and that's all that I've ever wanted out of life."
THE WOLFMAN is at Irish cinemas from Feb 12th 2010