The 2012 co-star who slapped Benicio del Toro 17 times: “Not very pleasant”
An actor known for his intensity, Benicio del Toro rose to prominence thanks to some very unusual roles, and once faced some real danger when making a gritty crime thriller.
Although his breakout performance in The Usual Suspects is what announced him as a potential star, del Toro would blow away the industry five years later with his brilliant performance as a Mexican cop in Traffic, which secured him an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’.
The sly, snarky sensibilities that del Toro had mastered earned him widespread admiration among living actors; he’s the type of actor who can deliver amazing performances in films that don’t otherwise connect. Given that his talents were sought out by Steven Soderbergh, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Julian Schnabel, Terry Gilliam, and Joe Johnston, among others, it was only a matter of time before he was singled out by Oliver Stone.
Stone had been in an awkward phase of his career, as both W and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps were considered disappointments, suggesting that he was reaching a decline in his immense filmography, so with Savages, he hoped to return to the grimy world of crime and smuggling, which felt like a throwback to the dark thrillers he had made during the beginning of his career.
Savages was based on a Don Winslow novel, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Taylor Kitsch as two American cannabis growers who end up getting into trouble with the cartel, and although del Toro had the role of a powerful enforcer, the cartel leader was portrayed by Salma Hayek in one of her most intense performances ever. According to del Toro, Hayek took the part so seriously that she performed some of the stunts for real.
“Receiving 17 slaps from Salma, a woman that comes from the same country as so many great boxers, was not very pleasant,” del Toro joked.
Savages was an odd late-period film for Stone, as its political satire was more abstract; while there is some compelling commentary on the mistreatment of veterans and the ignorance of Americans intertwined in global conspiracies, the film is mostly a pitch-black comedy, and one of the most brutal projects Stone ever made. Despite his joke about being slapped by Hayek, del Toro does give a genuinely scary performance in the film, which offered a preview of the intensity he would command three years later when he took on the role of Alejandro in Sicario.
Savages was a weirdly significant film for some of the other stars and served as somewhat of a reprieve for Kitsch after a brutal year, as it was the third 2012 film he had starred in, following John Carter and Battleship, both of which were massive bombs. While it had seemed that audiences rejected Kitsch as a potential movie star, Savages offered proof that he could actually act. He ended up developing a talent for being in similar crime thrillers, as he would give great performances in Waco and True Detective on television.
Stone has sadly yet to recapture the magic of his early work, as his next film, Snowden, was an unfortunate box office disaster, despite being well-received. His next film, White Lies, was originally going to be another collaboration with del Toro, but he dropped out and was replaced by Josh Hartnett.
