In a movie career spanning more than 20 years, Benicio del Toro has won an Oscar for Traffic, been nominated again for 21 Grams and starred in Che, The Usual Suspects, and The Wolfman.
But the Puerto Rican-born, Pennsylvania-raised star believes Latino actors are still being typecast in Hollywood.
''It's a little bit better than when I first started … but, yeah, we're still typecast,'' he says during a visit to Sydney to launch the Oliver Stone crime thriller Savages.
''But there's more Latino film makers giving opportunities to other Latinos [and] also showing that they can tell stories. And there's more Latinos in positions of power that will provide opportunity to Latino actors.''
The charismatic 45-year-old, who visited Bondi Beach and climbed the Harbour Bridge during his short stay, played his share of thugs and drug dealers before his Hollywood breakthrough as a resourceful Mexican cop in Traffic.
In Savages he plays what could easily be seen as another Latino cliche: a ruthless Mexican drug cartel enforcer who chainsaws off the heads of his enemies. READ MORE
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