Danny Trejo Thinks He’s Better Than George Clooney
Danny Trejo thinks his performance stole From Dusk Till Dawn from George Clooney.
Over the years, Danny Trejo had firmly established himself as everyone’s favorite badass, and he steals almost every scene he is in. The actor is very well aware of this and recently described how he stole an entire movie from Hollywood icon George Clooney. In an interview with GQ, Danny Trejo discussed the George Clooney film From Dusk Till Dawn and said that “I stole the movie, man!”
To fully understand how bold this claim is, it’s important to remember the colorful cast of actors that brought this movie’s downright insane characters to life. In addition to Danny Trejo playing fearsome warrior Razor Charlie, George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino play two criminal brothers on the run and hoping to escape into Mexico with the help of a hapless family led by Harvey Keitel’s Jacob Fuller.
And fans can never forget the seductive performance of Salma Hayek as Santanico Pandemonium, nor the hilarious performance of horror legend Tom Savini playing Sex Machine, a character that had a gun on his crotch.
Still, it’s important to note that while Danny Trejo is understandably proud of his performance, he still has extraordinary respect for major star George Clooney, and the two have maintained a close friendship over the years. In that same interview, Trejo describes Clooney as “unbelievable” in From Dusk Till Dawn (his first major film role) and describes a sweet moment at the premiere of the Clooney movie Up In the Air.
By then, Clooney was a Hollywood megastar, but he didn’t hesitate to call Trejo over to him at the premiere and tell everyone around him how Trejo was in his first movie, which surprised and honored Trejo.
Once Clooney achieved Hollywood icon status, he did not appear in the rest of the surprisingly lengthy From Dusk Till Dawn franchise. After the first movie, there was one sequel, one prequel, and a television show. Unlike George Clooney, Danny Trejo appeared in every movie and even in the television show, though he played a different character on the small screen.
How, though, did Danny Trejo steal the movie out from under George Clooney in that first film? The basic reason for this is that Clooney, despite being a criminal on the run, essentially plays the straight man against the rest of the colorful cast (including Quentin Tarantino, who plays a rapist and a murderer, contrasting with the calm and collected Clooney). Compared to straight-man Clooney, Danny Trejo gets to flex his chops as an intimidating bartender and later as an out-of-control vampire.
And when it comes to movie fans in general, many seem to prefer Danny Trejo over George Clooney. This is likely because their careers took different paths. Whereas Clooney has played everything from doctors to criminals to Batman himself, Trejo is forever cast as a kind of stoic badass, and he (unlike Clooney) is at the heart of many beloved memes celebrating his different characters.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter whether Danny Trejo stole From Dusk Till Dawn out from under George Clooney. Both are accomplished actors at the top of their game. Still, the debate over which actor gave a better performance is good for one thing: giving all of us an excuse to re-watch the weirdest vampire movie ever made.
