On this day in Horror History, Danny Trejo was born. A celebrated cult actor for nearly 30 years, Trejo’s dominating personality as well as being type casted as a tough criminal stems from his early life. After being in and out of jail for 11 years, a stint for armed robbery and drug charges would land him in a Rehab program until a chance meeting at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting would result in a role in Runaway Train (1985). Since then, his presence in the film industry has surmounted an incredible resume including The Devil's Rejects (2005), Hood of Horror (2006), Predators (2010), Machete (2010), and countless more beloved films.
(2011, on Runaway Train) “I walked on that movie set as a drug counselor. I was helping this kid I was counseling. He called me up and said, "Hey, there's a lot of blow down here." It was 1985, and cocaine was running rampant in the movie industry. It was crazy. You'd walk into production and there'd be lines on the table. He just asked me to come down and support him, because that's what I did. I still do it. I'm going over on an intervention right now to one of our Hollywood actors. I went onto this movie set, and he was a PA, and I thought it was cute. I had never been on a movie set in my life. All these guys were dressed up as inmates, and they were all trying to act tough. They all had these fake tattoos. I kept smearing these tattoos. I had to say, "Oh shit, I'm sorry. That stuff smears." This guy asked me if I wanted to be in a movie, and I said, "What do I gotta do?" And he said, "Do you want to be an extra?" And I said, "An extra what?" And he said, "Can you act like a convict?" I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. I'd been in every penitentiary in the state. I looked at him and I said, "Well, I'll give it a shot." He gave me a blue shirt, and I took off my shirt, and I have that big tattoo on my chest. He said "Leave your shirt off." Then this other guy comes over and says, "Hey, you're Danny Trejo. I saw you win the lightweight and welterweight title up in San Quentin." And I go, "Yeah. You're Eddie Bunker." I had been in prison with him. And he was a writer. We started talking, and he asked, "Are you still boxing?" And I go, "Well, I still train." And he said, "Do you want a job? We need someone to train one of the actors how to box." And I said, "I got a job. They're going to give me 15 bucks for acting like a convict. What's this pay?" He said, "It pays $320 a day." So I said, "How bad do you want this guy beat up? Shit, for 320 bucks-" And he goes, "No, you have to be really careful, this actor's really high-strung. He's already socked a couple of people." I said, "For $320, man, give him a stick. I'll fight Godzilla for 320 bucks." I started training Eric Roberts how to box. Eric wanted to learn how to box, and I think he was scared of me, so he'd do whatever I told him to do. Andrey Konchalovskiy, the director, saw that he would do whatever I told him to do. I guess Andrey had some problems with it. So Andrey comes over and hires me. He says, "You be in the movie. You fight Eric in the movie." And that's where it started. From that day until right now, I've got 183 movies.” –Danny Trejo
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