Interview: Danny Trejo (Machete / The Muppets / Bad Ass)

Hey, what’s up Danny?

Tim, what’s up?

Not much, freezing my ass off up here in Montana.

Montana? Do they have snow there?

We will soon, we have snow in the mountains…

I hate to tell you this, but there’s about five of my partners – we’re just sitting around with no shirts on.

[laughs] I wanted to start off with a few movies of yours that are coming out in the next month. What can you tell us about your involvement in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas?

Ah yeah, I play the… what’s his name… I play that Japanese dude’s father-in-law. I play his father-in-law.

Nice, do you have a big part in that?

Yeah. That is going to blow your mind. That movie is going to blow your mind… hell, I didn’t know those guys were funny.

I saw the trailer, there’s a lot of 3D going on.

Yeah… yeah.

So what do they have you doing in the movie?

Well, I’m against my son-in-law – I don’t like him. He’s trying to win me over – and I’m not having it. He’s not having a very successful time, you know? But, that’s about all I can tell ya.

The next one I wanted to talk about was a movie that kind of pops out because it doesn’t look like a Danny Trejo movie, The Muppets.

[laughs] Yeah, that was fun. They’re funny, I mean they are funny.

Now, do you have a bigger part than what we see in the trailer?

No, that’s it – I’ve got a cameo. A little cameo. It was a lot of fun, I got to flirt with Ms. Piggy – it was just awesome.

Yeah, you had the best part in the trailer – I can’t wait to see that too.

[laughs] It was fun.

Another movie that stood out by name was “Bad Ass” – and then I saw the poster and I was sold.

It’s funny because Bad Ass is actually about a Vietnam veteran who was --- who was on a bus and I guess somebody attacked an old man and he jumped up and beat the shit out of him. And people filmed him doing it and the movie was all over YouTube – so we made a movie about it.

That’s awesome. What can you tell me about it?

Well, that one is going to blow people’s minds because – this guy… he’s a tender guy. There’s a part of it where he puts on his old uniform and his best friend has just died – and this guy has been out of Vietnam for twenty-five years and he just starts to cry. Because – he’s like… “this uniform, I gave everything for it…” There’s some tender… tender spots in it. We owe our veterans so – so much, you know? And so we just wanted to drive that point home, and I think we did.

I was telling this friend of mine, who was in Vietnam – he toured. And I was telling him about this one part where I put my uniform on and I looked myself in the mirror and I just started to cry… you know… the veterans… they were just kind of overwhelmed and they thanked us.

You were able to live a lot of male fantasies in Machete – man to man, what was it like kissing Jessica Alba?

[laughs] Let me tell you something. I had three friends – I kissed Jessica Alba about eight times in eight takes – ok? After I was done, I can even say the names – Max Martinez, Mario and “Big Prey” – they were all trying to kiss me. [laughs] “Fuck it, you kissed Jessica Alba” [laughs]. Robert Rodriguez was hysterical.

[laughs] That’s awesome.

Yeah, we had a blast. I mean because Robert Rodriguez’s films are so family oriented – my daughter is one of the machine gun toting mechanics, my son was the kid riding… drawing pictures all of the time… and my three best friends were in it. So it’s like a big family.

And Robert is family too, isn’t he like your second cousin?

Second cousin, yeah. I met him when we did Desperado – we found out we were second cousins. When I met him, I walked into his office and he looked at me and said, “you remind me of the bad guys in my high school” – I said, “I am the bad guys in your high school”. We just hit it off. I don’t know, we’ve done about eleven movies now.

I’m sure you get this next question a lot, but when does number two [Machete] come out?

You know what… he’s got it written. There’s some stuff in this one that has never been seen before. It’s going to be a blast. You know, just gorgeous girls – seeing Jessica ready to go…

Yeah, I can see this franchise going off like James Bond style.

Yeah, we’ll be the next Latino James Bond. [laughs] It’ll be, “Machete… Machete Bond” [laughs]

Tell me about “Sons of Anarchy”, how did you get involved in that?

You know, they invited me to come down – and then I started doing it. I never knew – that thing is unbelievable… world wide… people love that thing. We’re just having a blast with it, it’s a lot of fun. You know, you’ve got Ron Perlman – who is a friend of mine – and Charlie [Hunnam] – the guy who plays ‘Jax’, he’s such a great kid and great actor.

Can you tell us about anything that is going to happen on any upcoming episodes? Especially next week?

[laughs] You guys are going to so surprised – it shocked me! I was shocked. Usually movies are just fun – this shocked me! I looked at the creator and I did like this, “Really? Wow, unreal”.