Image via Complex Original
In Machete Kills, out this Friday, venerable character actor Danny Trejo reprises his role as the titular tough guy Machete Cortez, a federale-turned-contract killer who is hired by the President (played by Carlos Estévez, a.k.a. Charlie Sheen) to put an end to the business dealings of a psychotic international arms dealer (played by Mel Gibson. Yep, Mel Gibson).
That Trejo is a natural in the role of big-screen badass comes as no surprise to those who know the 69-year-old Los Angeles native best, including Robert Rodriguez, the film’s director and Trejo’s second cousin (a fact unknown to the pair until Trejo's family visited the set of Desperado). That's because Trejo spent the first chapter of his life as a real-life badass.
Introduced to pot at the age of eight and heroin just four years later, Trejo's illegal antics escalated into armed robbery by the time he was 14. His formative years were spent in a series of juvenile detention centers and California State prisons, including stints at Folsom and San Quentin.
Trejo stumbled into acting accidentally, when he arrived on the set of 1985's Runaway Train in order to assist a fellow addict he was sponsoring.
"Now one of my favorite sayings is 'I would rather shoot for the moon and miss than aim for the gutter and make it,'" Trejo, who has amassed more than 250 acting credits, told a reporter from Prison Legal News of his newfound—and much more optimistic—outlook on life. "That’s out of the Book of Danny, Psalm 7."
As he returns to theaters in all his vengeful glory, we're recounting The Most Badass Moments from Danny Trejo's Actual Life.
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Smoking Pot At the Age of 8
While other kids were out playing baseball or climbing trees, Danny Trejo was learning how to roll a joint at the tender age of eight. And he liked it.
Getting a needle-and-thread chest tattoo
There are few parts of Danny Trejo's anatomy that are ink-free. But the tattoo on his chest—of a woman wearing a sombrero—has been named one of the world's most famous. Applied with a needle and thread while in prison by one of Trejo's oldest friends, Harry Ross, the image took more than two years to complete because the two kept being transferred to different prisons. "Two and a half years, three penitentiaries, and it's the most famous tattoo in the world," Trejo noted in the documentary Tattoo Nation.
Stabbing a Sailor With a Broken Bottle
At the age of 18, shortly after being released from a juvenile detention facility, Trejo was sent back into lock-up for two years following an incident at a drive-in theater where he stabbed a sailor with a broken bottle. Reflecting back on the events, Trejo admitted that he was "loaded."
"Alcohol made me real violent, really really violent," Trejo told Sabotage Times. "But still, you start realising that it’s not the drug, it’s the person. If you’re a bad drunk, you take away the drunk and you’re still bad. I had to find God, I had to find remorse, I had to find all these feelings that normal people had."
Selling Sugar to the Feds
Just months after being released for the stabbing, Trejo was busted for selling four ounces of heroin to an undercover federal agent. Ironically, what he gave him wasn't even heroin—it was sugar. Still, off Trejo went to San Quentin.
Going to the Hole
On May 5, 1968, Trejo and a fellow inmate allegedly started a prison riot at Soledad. In the melee, it was alleged that he threw a rock at one of the prison officers—an act that landed Trejo a stint in solitary confinement. It was there that Trejo found God.
"I remember praying, 'God, if you're there, it's going to be OK," Trejo told Hustler Magazine. "If you're not, I'm fucked.' And then I said to God, 'Just get me through this. Let it be over, and I got your back. I'll do whatever you want me to.'"
Fighting His Way Into Hollywood
Upon his final release from prison in 1972, Trejo rededicated his life to helping others. In 1984, a chance phone call from a fellow addict he was sponsoring who was working on the set of Runaway Train, starring Eric Roberts, would change the course of Trejo's life—and career.
Upon spotting him on the set, a casting agent asked if he'd like to make a quick $50 a day as an extra, to which Trejo agreed. Then Edward Bunker—a fellow inmate turned writer—spotted Trejo and recognized him as San Quentin's boxing champ and suggested he stay on to help train Eric Roberts (who earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the role).
Danny Trejo: Hollywood Player was born.
Kicking Ass in Front of the Camera
Trejo continued to work as an extra, but his distinctive tough guy looks often landed him small speaking parts once he got on the set.
"I was always Inmate No. 1," Trejo recalled to the A.V. Club, "and I always had one line like, 'Kill ’em all.' It was like, 'I can do this.' I remember a director handed me a shotgun and he said, 'Kick in this door and take control.' There was a poker game going inside, and the director said there would be a couple of stunt people inside. He said to improvise. So I kick in the door, somebody jumps up, I bash them with the shotgun, and I ask this guy, 'Oh, you wanna die, huh?' This lady starts screaming, and I put this gun right in her face. So the director yells, 'Cut! Cut! God, Danny, where did you study?' I said, 'Let me see. Vons. Safeway. Thrifty Mart...' I was Inmate No. 1 for the first five years of my career. So shit, I know how to be an inmate."
Getting Animated on King of the Hill
Animation and badassery don't always go together. But when the cartoon in question is Mike Judge's King of the Hill, and the character is a hit man, you know you've made your mark as a man not to be trifled with. After voicing the character of Enrique on the animated series, Judge created an entirely new character—killer-for-hire Octavio—based on Trejo (but voiced by Judge).
Duking It Out With Snoop Dogg
Trejo's skills in the boxing ring caught the interest of video game company Electronic Arts, who turned Trejo into a playable character in Def Jam Fight for NY, with additional voices by Snoop Dogg, Method Man, and Busta Rhymes.
Being Declared a Champion
In 2005, director Joe Eckardt deemed Trejo's life story interesting enough to make a documentary out of it entitled Champion. Dennis Hopper, Robert Rodriguez, Steve Buscemi, Antonio Banderas, Val Kilmer, and Edward Bunker are among the Hollywood talents who weigh in on Trejo's transformation from convict to character actor. The film was named Best Documentary at the 2005 Phoenix Film Festival.
Becoming a Changed Man
Strip away the extensive filmography, acting awards, and all-around reputation as a genuinely good guy and Danny Trejo's most kickass accomplishment just may be his impressive transformation.
Following his release from prison, Trejo has served time as a substance abuse counselor—which he still does today—and regularly visits prisons around the country to share his story with inmates to help them see that there truly is a world of opportunity awaiting them on the outside.
As for Trejo himself, he doesn't take his success for granted. And has to remind himself that this is not all one big dream.
"I'm so blessed," he told the New York Daily News. "I'm still scared that somebody's going to wake me up and say, 'Hey, we're still in prison. Let's go to chow.'"