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Benicio Monserrate Rafael Del Toro Sanchez is a Puerto Rican actor who was born in 1967. He is the third Puerto Rican to have won an Oscar after Jose Ferrer and Rita Monero. His first ever screen performance was doing cameo appearance for Madonna’s music video La Isla Bonita.
Benecio made his debut in the 1988 film ‘Duke, the dog faced Boy’. His breakthrough role was his next role in the 1989 James Bond Movie ‘License to Kill’. He was named as the youngest actor(21) ever to play a Villain’s role in a 007 movie. Through out the 90s Benecio gave some stunning performances for the roles he played in ‘The Indian Runner’ (1991), ‘China Moon’ (1991), ‘Christopher Columbus: The Discovery’ (1992), ‘Money for Nothing’ (1993), ‘Fearless’ (1993), and ‘Swimming with Sharks’ (1994).
It was in 1995 that he performed with Kevin Spacey and Gabriel Bryne in ‘The Usual Suspects’. Many critics added glory to Benecio’s career by saying that he was the man to look out in the movie. He had a unique accent in the movie where most of the dialogue was mumbled out. In 1998, Benecio starred with Johnny Depp in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. The film went off to become a flop disappointing Benecio as he really wanted a better response. Nevertheless the film has raised its own cult following.
It was in 2000 that Benecio won an Oscar for his performance in Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Traffic’. Benecio plays the role of a Mexican Cop by the name Javier Rodriguez, whose script was mostly in Spainish. He starred with Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones and Don Cheadle. His success in ‘Traffic’ brought him roles in Guy Ritchie’s ‘Snatch’ where he stars a thief along with Brad Pitt. Later in 2003, he starred in ‘The Hunted’ along with Tommy Lee Jones. His recent movies include ’21 Grams’, and the Robert Rodriguez adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel ‘Sin City’.
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