The unique slice of cinema history quite literally carved out by Danny Trejo
In 2020, Danny Trejo sat down for an interview with Discussing Film about the extremely personal documentary Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo, which charted his inspiring path from convicted felon to redemption as a Hollywood star. However, in the midst of this chat, Trejo almost accidentally brought up a piece of cinema history that he’d quite literally carved out – and it’s (nearly) the whole truth.
After talking about the documentary, the interviewer reminded Trejo that it had been ten years since the release of Machete, the Robert Rodriguez-directed spinoff of he and Tarantino’s ill-fated Grindhouse double feature. Trejo got excited, exclaiming, “Wow. That’s unreal,” before joking, “Machete, Machete Kills – if Robert would ever get off his ass, he’d write Machete Kills in Space! I might write it.”
In truth, it’s no wonder Trejo has such fond memories of Machete. It’s not often a character actor like him gets to star as the lead in a major motion picture, let alone one which started life as a fake trailer in a knowingly grungy B-movie project. He marvelled at the film’s cast, which included Robert De Niro and Don Johnson, and then reserved some praise for two female co-stars in particular.
“Come on, I kissed Jessica Alba,” Trejo said wistfully, as if movie-making couldn’t get any better than that. “So, that’s one of the highlights. Then, man, I got to work with Michelle Rodriguez, who is just a kiss from God’s lips. She’s an amazing lady.”
Trejo then revealed a piece of cinematic history in such an off-hand manner that many would think it couldn’t possibly be true. He revealed: “We just had a blast on that set; it was crazy. I got to kill Steven Seagal! I was the only actor to ever kill Steven Seagal.” Amazingly, Trejo wasn’t just tooting his own horn or repeating something he’d been told in error – he really is the only actor to have killed the spray-haired, pony-tailed martial arts maestro Seagal on-screen.
Well, here’s where it gets a bit murky. Technically, Seagal’s drug lord Rogelio Torrez kills himself with the act of Seppuku after receiving a surely fatal knife wound from Machete – but we’re going to put it down as a kill for everyone’s favourite ultraviolent Mexican secret agent.
In truth, it’s not surprising that Seagal’s on-screen demise in Machete is clouded with uncertainty. After all, he was known throughout his career for steadfastly refusing to let anyone kill him in his films. Even in 1996’s Executive Decision – a movie he signed up for knowing his character would die a third of the way through the movie – he argued that he should stay alive. Director Stuart Baird wanted Seagal’s character to be killed by a co-star, but he suggested his head should blow up due to a change in the cabin pressure of the plane in which the action was taking place.
When Baird vetoed this idea, Seagal reportedly locked himself in his trailer for days. He told people he wouldn’t come out again until the scene was rewritten. It took Baird reminding him that he was breaching his contract by refusing to shoot the scene in which Seagal finally decided to play ball, but even then, a compromise was reached. Instead of being killed by a co-star, Seagal’s character was simply sucked out of the plane to his doom.
