Benicio Del Toro returns to the big screen this week with the release of his latest movie The Wolfman, a remake of the 1941 classic of the same name.
The actor has enjoyed a career that has spanned over twenty years bringing him critical, box office, Oscar and Golden Globe success along the way.
After enrolling at the University of California to study of business, with drama on the side, but was encouraged to go and study drama.
The actor kicked off his acting career in TV with the likes of Miami Vice being amongst his early roles.
He made his big screen debut in 1989 in License to Kill, which starred Timothy Dalton as 007, as Big Top Pee-wee.
At the tender age of twenty one he was the youngest actor ever to take on the role of a Bond villain in the franchise.
While he continued to work in the early nineties, with roles in The Indian Runner and Money for Nothing it was 1995 that really saw his career start to take off.
And it was all thanks to that little movie called The Usual Suspects, directed by Bryan Singer.
He took on the part of Fred Fenster and his performance earnt him a Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male and the roles came flooding in.
The Funeral and Basquait followed before he went on to gain a cult following with Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.
He teamed up with Johnny Depp for the Terry Gilliam directed movie in which he played Dr. Gonzo.
He took two years away from the big screen but returned with a string of movies that cemented him as one of Hollywood's best actors.
The Way of the Gun came first in 2000 but it was Traffic, the ensemble drama directed by Steven Soderbergh, that brought him huge success.
The movie was a modern day look at America's war on drugs told through four separate stories that are connected in one way or another.
A conservative politician who's just been appointed as the US drug czar learns that his daughter is a drug addict. A trophy wife struggles to save her husband's drug business, while two DEA agents protect a witness with inside knowledge of the spouse's business.
In Mexico, a corrupt, yet dedicated cop struggles with his conscience when he learns that his new boss may not be the anti-drug official he made himself out to be.
The movie was a box office hit taking $207.5 million at the global box office. And for Del Toro awards recognition came his way.
For his performance he won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Bafta for Best Supporting Actor.
He followed Traffic up with a role in Guy Ritchie's second movie Snatch as Franky 'Four Fingers'.
But it was 2003 when 21 Grams once again brought him wide spread critical praise and award nominations. A second Best Supporting Actor nomination came his way for his performance, but he lost out to Tim Robbins for Mystic River.
Another high profile role followed as he starred in Robert Rodriguez's big screen adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City.
Taking on the role of Det. Lt. Jack "Jackie Boy" Rafferty he joined the ensemble cast of Clive Owen, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Elijah Wood and Brittany Murphy. The movie was a critical and commercial success.
After starring in Things We Lost In The Fire with Halle Berry he took on the role of Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh two part biopic Che.
Del Toro's performance as the revolutionary was widely praised and won the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award, but missed out on an Oscar nomination.
The Wolfman is his first role since starring Che. He stars as Laurence Talbot whose childhood ended the night his mother died. After he left the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor, he spent decades recovering and trying to forget.
But when his brother's fiancée, Gwen Conliffe, tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns home to join the search.
He learns that something with brute strength and insatiable bloodlust has been killing the villagers, and that a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector named Aberline has come to investigate.
As he pieces together the gory puzzle, he hears of an ancient curse that turns the afflicted into werewolves when the moon is full.
Now, if he has any chance at ending the slaughter and protecting the woman he has grown to love, Talbot must destroy the vicious creature in the woods surrounding Blackmoor.
But as he hunts for the nightmarish beast, a simple man with a tortured past will uncover a primal side to himself...one he never imagined existed.
And there are a string of projects in the pipeline for the actor including The Three Stooges, Lumar Park and Silence.
The Wolfman is out now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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