Del Toro was born in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and grew up in Pennsylvania. He became interested in acting while attending the University of California, San Diego, and subsequently studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory under the tutelage of Arthur Mendoza.
Del Toro made his motion picture debut in John Glen's Licence to Kill, opposite Timothy Dalton's James Bond, and has earned critical acclaim for his performances ever since. He earned back-to-back Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Male for his performances as Fred Fenster in Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects and as Benny Dalmau in Julian Schnabel's Basquiat. Del Toro's performance in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for Best Actor, and a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and an Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor. His work in Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu's 21 Grams led to another Oscar® nomination, and he won the Audience Award for Best Actor at the Venice International Film Festival. Del Toro reteamed with Soderbergh to play the title role in Che: Part One and Che: Part Two, a biography of Che Guevara for which he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival and at the Goya Awards in Spain.
Del Toro made his directorial debut with the short film El Yuma, starring Josh Hutcherson as a young American tourist who travels to Havana for the first time. El Yuma was premiered at Cannes Film Festival 2012 as part of the full-length film 7 Days in Havana, which is comprised of seven shorts.
Del Toro's additional credits include the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel "Sin City," directed by Robert Rodriquez; Peter Weir's Fearless; George Huang's Swimming With Sharks; Abel Ferrara's The Funeral; Guy Ritchie's Snatch; Sean Penn's The Indian Runner and The Pledge; Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun; William Friedkin's The Hunted; Susanne Bier's Things We Lost in the Fire; as Dr. Gonzo in Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; and The Wolfman, opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt.
© 2012 Universal Pictures
