The Most Badass Moments from Danny Trejo's Actual Life

Danny Trejo's on-screen tough guy persona is no accident.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

In Machete Kills, out this Friday, venerable character actor Danny Trejo reprises his role as the titular tough guy Machete Cortez, a federale-turned-contract killer who is hired by the President (played by Carlos Estévez, a.k.a. Charlie Sheen) to put an end to the business dealings of a psychotic international arms dealer (played by Mel Gibson. Yep, Mel Gibson).

That Trejo is a natural in the role of big-screen badass comes as no surprise to those who know the 69-year-old Los Angeles native best, including Robert Rodriguez, the film’s director and Trejo’s second cousin (a fact unknown to the pair until Trejo's family visited the set of Desperado). That's because Trejo spent the first chapter of his life as a real-life badass.

Introduced to pot at the age of eight and heroin just four years later, Trejo's illegal antics escalated into armed robbery by the time he was 14. His formative years were spent in a series of juvenile detention centers and California State prisons, including stints at Folsom and San Quentin.

Trejo stumbled into acting accidentally, when he arrived on the set of 1985's Runaway Train in order to assist a fellow addict he was sponsoring.

"Now one of my favorite sayings is 'I would rather shoot for the moon and miss than aim for the gutter and make it,'" Trejo, who has amassed more than 250 acting credits, told a reporter from Prison Legal News of his newfound—and much more optimistic—outlook on life. "That’s out of the Book of Danny, Psalm 7."

As he returns to theaters in all his vengeful glory, we're recounting The Most Badass Moments from Danny Trejo's Actual Life.

RELATED: The 10 Greatest Action Heroes That Started As Criminals 
RELATED: The 50 Best Action Movies of All Time 
RELATED: Fantastic Fest Review: "Machete Kills" Takes Mex-ploitation into James Bond Territory

Smoking Pot At the Age of 8

Not Available Interstitial

Getting a needle-and-thread chest tattoo

Not Available Interstitial

Stabbing a Sailor With a Broken Bottle

Not Available Interstitial

Selling Sugar to the Feds

Not Available Interstitial

Going to the Hole

Not Available Interstitial

Fighting His Way Into Hollywood

Not Available Interstitial

Kicking Ass in Front of the Camera

Not Available Interstitial

Getting Animated on King of the Hill

Not Available Interstitial

Duking It Out With Snoop Dogg

Not Available Interstitial

Being Declared a Champion

Not Available Interstitial

Becoming a Changed Man

Not Available Interstitial

Latest in Pop Culture