Danny Trejo’s greatest-ever death scene: “What more could you want?”
From spending time behind bars to grossing over $3.7billion worldwide, Danny Trejo has been on one hell of a career ride.
The Mexican-American star has one of the least likely success stories in all of Hollywood, but, through grit, determination, and indisputable talent, he’s managed to go from the very bottom all the way to the very top.
Trejo is very good at lots of things: he plays a grizzled hardman like few others, but also clearly has a great sense of humour and comedic timing. One thing he’s really good at, though, is dying (onscreen only). He gives Sean Bean a run for his money in terms of iconic scenes of meeting one’s maker, as his characters often face unfortunate ends, usually because he’s so good at playing bad guys or henchmen, most of whom are not made to last the runtime. He also apparently insists that his more nefarious characters always get killed, so he can teach younger viewers that a life of crime doesn’t end well.
When discussing his various onscreen demises with GamesRadar, Trejo was asked to pick his favourite. That is a near-impossible challenge. Some of the greatest examples of him biting the dust include getting taken out by an exploding wine bottle in Death Wish 4, being torn to pieces in Con Air, and having his severed head stuck to the top of a tortoise (which also had a bomb strapped to it) in Breaking Bad. However, when it comes to Danny’s personal favourite, a classic 1990s thriller comes out on top.
“I think the one with Robert De Niro [in Heat],” he revealed, adding, “My kids and my mom can watch all of them, but they can’t watch that one. That one’s just too real. And then dying with Robert DeNiro, what more could you want?”
Michael Mann’s tale of a thief on the run in Los Angeles, Heat pits police officer Vincent Hanna, played by Al Pacino, against career criminal, De Niro’s Neil McCauley. The rest of the cast is absolutely stacked, featuring appearances from Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Natalie Portman, and Mr Trejo, who plays a character called… uh, Trejo. How imaginative. He is McCauley’s getaway driver, who is beaten to within an inch of his life by former team member Waingro, played by Kevin Gage. McCauley ends up performing a mercy killing on his former friend in a surprisingly touching scene for one that is also so bloody.
“De Niro said, ‘I believe you’re almost dead, Dan. You’re almost dead. You have enough left to beg me to kill you’,” Trejo recalled his co-star telling him. “For a split second, he asked me, ‘What do you think?’, I wanted to go, ‘Nah, Bob, I don’t see it that way’. Then I remembered, it’s Robert De Niro! That’s the way we’ll do it. Very little dialogue on my part…that was one of the best death scenes of that century.”
Heat is widely regarded as one of the great thrillers ever made. There’s even talk of a sequel, but alas, Trejo will not be reprising his role. At least he got to go out with a bang, though.
