Benicio del Toro on working with ‘meticulous’ Wes Anderson on The French Dispatch: ‘It was like doing theatre’

The Oscar-winning actor stars alongside Timothée Chalamet in Wes Anderon’s latest movie (Picture: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Hollywood star Benicio del Toro, 54, on his limited ambitions, how basketball helped him settle in the States, being ‘overlooked’ for fattening up, and his latest film, The French Dispatch.

Hi Benicio! You play a radical artist in The French Dispatch, your first Wes Anderson film. What was he like?

He’s very meticulous about his directing, very specific about what he wants. I really enjoyed it. I was surprised. It was very much like doing theatre in a way. He’s a stickler for the truth, which is really refreshing.

It’s a film that looks to the past. Are you very nostalgic?

I grew up looking back! I’m still catching up with Humphrey Bogart movies. And it’s the beauty of being alive in this era and having options.

Do you feel it’s a love letter to Europe? Will Americans like it?

I’m an optimist. Let’s not forget Wes Anderson is American. I think America isolates itself. It’s a tug of war.

And thank God that we’ve got filmmakers like Wes Anderson, who goes out and makes this movie, which is a love letter to journalists and Europe and France.

Director Wes Anderson, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Benicio Del Toro, and Alexandre Desplat at the premiere for The French Dispatch at the 74th international film festival, Cannes in July (Picture: Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Who do you look up to in Hollywood?

Well, Sean Penn… but classic Hollywood? Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, Lon Chaney, Toshiro Mifune, Marcello Mastroianni… is that classic?

Give me a Mifune, Mastroianni or Brando movie and I’m just going to enjoy it. There are so many actors but I can learn definitely from those guys too. They’re encyclopaedias.

You won best actor in Cannes for the film Che in 2008. Was it always an ambition to go there?

When I first started acting, all I knew was that this was what I wanted to do. It really didn’t matter if I got a job. My thought was, if I don’t make it and all I get is to do some mimes at SeaWorld, I was going to be OK with that.

So that was my mentality. I was never thinking, ‘I want to act so I can be in Cannes.’ So when I sit here and look back, it’s pretty amazing.

I don’t come from a family of theatre or movie people. I have no reference to this world. So I’ve learnt as I go. But it’s been a lot of work and I’ve been very lucky and I’ve taken chances, and some of them have worked. And I’ve learned a lot from a lot of people, it’s a combination of a lot of stuff. But I’m grounded and I don’t take it for granted.

Your family moved to the US from Puerto Rico when you were 12. Was that tough to come to a new country?

Tough? It was but it was great too. I enjoyed being alone. I also played basketball a lot and I was quite competitive at it, so I immediately made friends.

Then I met a girl so I was covered! I was lucky. Yeah, I knew a little bit of English. It was a challenge but, with the right attitude, you can definitely get around.

Were you a basketball addict as a teenager then?

My room was a shrine for that. I had posters of Bill Walton, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. All those guys. I didn’t support any team, I just supported players. For me, I just liked the sport. I liked college basketball too.

Benicio worshipped basketball players like Magic Johnson (Picture: Peter Read Miller/NBAE via Getty Images)

So what got you into acting?

Because I couldn’t play the guitar, couldn’t play the piano, couldn’t play soccer… I played basketball, but I was never going to make a living out of that! I went to my first acting class in college and I really took it because I thought it would be really easy.

And there was no way I could fail that and there was no way I was going to have to do a lot of homework for it. And the teacher, when I was 18, 19, said something that really hit me: ‘You’re at the right age, right now, to learn about acting.’

And I was amazed that you could learn acting, that it was a science. Maybe he was bulls***ting me but it really hit me. So I just took it seriously.

You have a ten-year-old daughter, Delilah [with Rod Stewart’s daughter, Kimberly]. Did becoming a father make you want to do more kid-friendly films?

Not when it comes to movies but maybe I’m more interested to do stuff my daughter would enjoy. Definitely. I’m looking at it like that. It’s not like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to play the bad guy now I’m a father.’ Of course not.

You’ve not had many films that have flopped but how do you deal with bad reviews?

You can take a movie like 1998’s Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. My experience with that was crazy. The reviews came out and destroyed the film, and the film came out and very few people saw it.

But it’s been a success as years have gone by. And that was a lot of effort from my part, from all of us. I gained a lot of weight, I did it all on my own, I didn’t do it with trainers. And I did it in eight weeks.

It was just like ‘Whoa!’ And there were some reviews that didn’t even mention me! You didn’t see me in the film? I took up half the screen!

Are you good at ignoring critics?

Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t go home and lick my wounds. I just try to keep my short-term memory really healthy.

The French Dispatch opens in cinemas this Friday

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