Gorgeous cinematography and masterful direction aside, a key highlight of Denis Villeneuveโs Sicario was the performance offered by the Academy Award-winning Benicio Del Toro.
Wielding tension like a switchblade, the character of grieving prosecutor turned CIA assassin Alejandro Gillick proved to be intimidating beyond his job description, a complex mixture of humanity and the lack thereof. And as cinematographer Roger Deakins revealed in this weekโs instalment of his podcast โ Team Deakins โ a decent portion of what the audience witnessed was improvised by Del Toro himself.
Del Toro apparently had some ideas about modifying the script. Often throughout the production, the actor would consult Villeneuve about throwing away a fair bit of dialogue and silently expressing what was relevant using body language instead. โA fair bitโ, in this case, referring to entire scenes.
โโYou know whatโฆ there is a whole page of dialogue and I donโt think I need it because I think I can say it on my face.โ โ and he could,โ Deakins remarked on the podcast.
โBut we had never heard an actor say that before, โTake away the dialogue.โโฆ The film is telling you but it doesnโt feel like youโre being talked to.โ
This particular episode of Deakinsโ podcast also included the guest appearances of both Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan. Dano recounted experiencing something similar during his time working with Del Toro in the Showtime series Escape at Dannemora.
โIt was a real lesson to me as well in some way,โ says Dano.
โI prefer to work a scene until itโs dead and bloody on the groundโฆ I like doing takes. In seeing Benicio go, โNo, I had a thought and I think you have that.โ I was like โ heโs trusting the workโฆ I had never seen or heard that before either.โ
I think we can all agree the decision to let Benicio Del Toro have free rein of Alejandro in Sicario was the correct one, resulting in something nuanced, memorable, and most importantly, menacing.
You can check out the full episode of Team Deakins with Paul Dano & Zoe Kazan โ as well as every past episode โ in the link below.
