Benicio Del Toro recently garnered his second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in 21 Grams. He also won the Audience Award for Best Actor (in a tie) at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, in addition to other critical accolades for the role of bornagain ex-con Jack Jordon. Earlier, Del Toro earned the Academy Award for his performance as Javier Rodriguez in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic as well as Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, New York Film Critics Circle, National Society of Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics Association, and Silver Bear [Berlin International Film Festival] Awards. He has also received two Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Actor: first as Fred Fenster in Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects, and then as Benny Dalmau in Julian Schnabel's Basquiat.

Del Toro made his motion picture debut in John Glen's License to Kill, opposite Timothy Dalton as James Bond. His subsequent films include Peter Weir's Fearless, George Huang's Swimming with Sharks, Abel Ferrara's The Funeral, Marco Brambilla's Excess Baggage, Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Christopher McQuarrie's The Way of the Gun, Guy Ritchie's Snatch, William Friedkin's The Hunted and The Indian Runner and The Pledge, both directed by Sean Penn.

His television credits include the NBC Emmy-winning miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story. directed by Brian Gibson. Born in Puerto Rico, Del Toro grew up in Pennsylvania. He later attended the University of California at San Diego, where he divided his time between painting and acting classes. He appeared in numerous student productions, one of which led to his performing at a drama festival at the Lafayette Theatre in New York.