Benicio del Toro Left Bryan Singer Baffled With His Childish Behavior While Filming 1 Cult Classic Film That Redefined Plot Twists Forever
- Benicio del Toro had his breakthrough with the Academy Award-winning movie The Usual Suspects.
- Kevin Pollack revealed how del Toro's shenanigans made things difficult for one of the most iconic scenes in the movie.
- Pollack claimed all the laughing in the filming of that scene made for the greatest happy accident of his life.
Benicio del Toro has starred in projects of diverse genres, but the ones he is most known for are crime dramas and thrillers with intense and gritty atmospheres. In fact, he began his acting career portraying thugs and drug dealers in TV shows and had his breakthrough with Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects, released in 1995.
There is a scene in that movie in which the suspects are standing in a line-up at the police station and asked to come forward and repeat a line. It is one of the most iconic scenes in the movie and is often considered a memorable piece of cinematic masterpiece. However, the backstory of that scene is quite hilarious.
Benicio del Toro’s Shenanigans During the Line-Up Scene in The Usual Suspects Left Bryan Singer Baffled
The Usual Suspects is a neo-noir mystery thriller film, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, which revolves around the interrogation of a con man named Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint (Kevin Spacey), who is one of the only two survivors of a massacre and arson on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles.
Five criminals, Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fred Fenster (Benicio del Toro), Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), and Roger Kint (Kevin Spacey), are introduced at the beginning of the film. They are brought in for a line-up as suspects of a truck hijacking in New York, and asked to come forward and say the line: “Give me the keys, you f*cking cocks*cker.”
Each of them says the line in their own unique way which sets the tone for the rest of the film. As one can imagine, they are supposed to deliver the line with seriousness. However, the actors were far from serious during the scene’s shooting as revealed by Kevin Pollack in an interview on The Rich Eisen Show.
It’s all outtakes, we couldn’t stop laughing. It was the one day where we all got the giggles, and everyone—Benicio passed wind like seven takes in a row, which is not easy. You have to pace yourself.
When asked if it was because of del Toro that they kept laughing, Pollack clarified that that was not the case. In fact, after Singer told them during lunch that they were unable to get any scenes without one of them bursting into laughter, the actors began laughing more.
Kevin Pollack Claims This Was the “Greatest Happy Accident” He Has Ever Been a Part Of
In Pollack’s opinion, Singer asking them to not laugh was like asking nine-year-olds to not laugh at the funeral, and it did not do anything to make the situation better. At the end of the day, the director just thanked them and asked them to leave.
Eventually, Singer realized that their laughing made the scene even more apt for the situation, not to mention the actors’ instant camaraderie. However, the editors managed to make the scene with outtakes. Pollack said of the scene:
It was the greatest happy accident I’ve ever been involved in.
The movie has a cult classic status which is widely praised for its plot twist, screenplay and mystery elements. It won McQuarrie the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and Spacey the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
