His career gained momentum in 1995 with his breakout performance in The Usual Suspects, where he played the mumbling, wisecracking Fred Fenster.[13] The role won him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male and established him as a character actor. This led to stronger roles in independent and major studio films, including playing Gaspare in Abel Ferrara's The Funeral (1996) and winning a second consecutive Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his work as Benny Dalmau in Basquiat (1996), directed by his friend, film-maker and painter Julian Schnabel. Del Toro also shared the screen with Robert De Niro in the big-budget thriller The Fan (1996), in which he played Juan Primo, a charismatic Puerto Rican baseball star. He subsequently starred opposite Alicia Silverstone in Excess Baggage (1997), which Silverstone produced.
For Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the 1998 film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's a famous book, he gained more than 40 lbs. (about 18 kg) to play Dr. Gonzo (a.k.a. Oscar Zeta Acosta), Thompson's lawyer and drug-fiend cohort.[13] The surrealistic film, directed by Terry Gilliam, has earned a cult following over the years.
Del Toro's performances in four films in 2000 gained him a mainstream audience. First, the crime yarn The Way of the Gun reunited him with The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. A few months later, he stood out among a first-rate ensemble cast in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, a complex dissection of the North American drug wars. As Javier Rodriguez—a Mexican border policeman struggling to remain honest amid the corruption and deception of illegal drug trafficking—del Toro, who spoke most of his lines in Spanish, gave a performance that dominated the film.[13] His performance swept all of the major critics' awards in 2001. Del Toro won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the fourth living Oscar winner whose winning role was a character who speaks predominantly in a non-English language. Del Toro is also the third Puerto Rican actor to win an Oscar, after Jose Ferrer and Rita Moreno.[13] The year he won his Oscar marked the first time that two actors born in Puerto Rico were nominated in the same category (the other actor was Joaquin Phoenix). In his acceptance speech, del Toro thanked the people of both Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora and dedicated his award to them. In addition to the Oscar, he also won the Golden Globe Award and the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Traffic was also a success at the box office. This was soon followed by a small role as the diamond thief Franky Four Fingers in Guy Ritchie's hip caper comedy Snatch and a role as a mentally challengedNative American man in The Pledge, directed by his old friend Sean Penn.[13]
In 2008, del Toro was awarded the Prix d'interpretation masculine (or Best Actor Award) at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Che Guevara in the biographical films The Argentine and Guerrilla (together known as Che).[14] During his acceptance speech, del Toro dedicated his award "to the man himself, Che Guevara" along with director Steven Soderbergh.[15] Del Toro was also awarded the 2009 Goya Award as the Best Actor for his portrayal of Guevara.[16]Sean Penn, who won the 2009 Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Milk, remarked that he was surprised and disappointed that Che and del Toro were not also up for any Academy Award nominations. During his acceptance speech for the Best Actor award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Penn expressed his dismay stating, "The fact that there aren't crowns on Soderbergh's and del Toro's heads right now, I don't understand... that is such a sensational movie, Che."[17] For the final portions of the film (shown here), del Toro shed 35 pounds to show how ill Guevara had become near the end of his life in the jungles of Bolivia.[18]
In September 2015, del Toro played Alejandro Gillick in the critically acclaimed Sicario, about a Mexican ex-prosecutor seeking revenge for the slaying of his wife and daughter working with a CIA special ops team to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel. Film critics widely praised his performance.[23][24] Del Toro reprised his role in the sequel Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018). In 2016, del Toro appeared in a Heineken television advertisement in its More Behind the Star series. The gag in the spot is that fans frequently mistake him for fellow actor Antonio Banderas, much to del Toro's chagrin.[25] In 2017, he played DJ (an abbreviation for "Don't Join", as DJ viewed the Resistance and the First Order as equally corrupt), a supporting antagonist in Star Wars: The Last Jedi,[26] who betrayed Rose and Finn to save himself when they were apprehended on the First Order's flagship.[27]
On April 11, 2011, del Toro's publicist announced that del Toro and Kimberly Stewart, daughter of British singer Rod Stewart, were expecting a child, although they were not in a relationship.[29] Stewart gave birth to a daughter on August 21, 2011.[30][29] They had their daughter baptized in Puerto Rico.[31]
On November 4, 2011, he acquired Spanish citizenship, along with fellow Puerto Rican Ricky Martin.[32] The request was granted by the Spanish government in recognition of his artistic talents[32] and for his Spanish ancestry (he has family in Barcelona).[33]
In March 2012, he was granted an honorary degree by the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico for his influence on the cinema enterprise, during the celebration of the institution's centenary.[34]
In 2003, del Toro became the spokesman of the educational campaign Yo Limpio a Puerto Rico, an environmental organization founded in 1997 by Ignacio Barsottelli, whose mission is to educate and mobilize Puerto Ricans in favor of recycling and the protection of the environment.[35]
Del Toro narrated the public service announcement entitled "Coral Reef", joining the Artists to the Rescue of the Environment campaign.[35]
^Historic Buildings and Structures in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Jorge L. Perez (El Nuevo Dia) and Jorge Figueroa (Ponce Municipal Historian). Text accompanying Drawing #20, titled "Tumba de los Bomberos". Puerto Rico Historic Buildings Drawings Society. 2019. Accessed 4 February 2019.
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