The truth behind Benicio del Toro rejecting an iconic role in ‘Star Wars’
The Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro has been featured in several acclaimed movies, including Basquiat, Snatch, Sin City, Che and Sicario and in 2017, he joined one of the biggest science fiction movie franchises of all time when he performed in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson.
Del Toro actually had the opportunity to feature in a Star Wars movie early in his career, just after he had come to the public’s attention with Fear and Loathing and The Usual Suspects. He agreed to play the iconic villain in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, the Sith Lord, Darth Maul.
Shortly after del Toro had signed on to play Darth Maul, George Lucas decided to cut the iconic villain’s moments of dialogue to just five lines. Del Toro was naturally a bit irked by this decision and subsequently chose to reject his opportunity to be able to feature in the oft-maligned 1999 sci-fi movie.
Lucas had wanted the Zabrak menace to possess a quiet yet brooding intensity, and to have him speak too often would negate that kind of character. Del Toro had wanted to offer his all as Darth Maul and would have chosen to investigate the character to see what kind of unique flavour he could bring to the table.
At the time, del Toro did not possess the stature that he does today, but he was at least a name of relative notoriety. When del Toro first agreed to the role, his billing was only met in the prospective audience’s interest by the inclusion of the likes of Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Samuel L. Jackson.
It’s also worth pointing out what a fantastic job Ray Park did as Darth Maul. He delivered precisely what George Lucas was looking for in giving the villain his quiet reflective terror and subsequently made the character one of the most iconic in the first movie in the Star Wars reboot.
Quite simply, Darth Maul is a pretty cool kind of Sith Lord and was highly popular amongst kids enjoying their first Star Wars movie in the late 1990s. To have him speak too often might have undone that unique sense of cool, so it’s fair to say that the right actor took on the job.
Del Toro got his chance to feature in a Star Wars movie anyway, and even he would probably admit that it was right for him to pass up the initial opportunity, passing the job over to Park.
