Benicio Del Toro

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

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.

I'm just an actor.

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.

Before I was ever in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. The rumor was I was a junkie. I have dark circles under my eyes, deal with it.

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

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

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.

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.

There are a lot of good actresses out there.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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'm a slow reader.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.