Speaking at a panel during Orlando’s MegaCon last weekend, Machete and The Flash star Danny Trejo told fans that one of the only times he was ever starstruck when meeting somebody in Hollywood was his first encounter with Robert De Niro. According to Trejo, though, it was misdirected anxiety. De Niro was apparently a pleasure to work with — something that was surely a thrill for a guy who reportedly was such a big fan of the Taxi Driver star that he kept a voicemail from De Niro for seven years. The pair appeared together in Heat in 1995, before Trejo was a household name. The next time they shared the screen was in Machete, a movie in which Trejo was the lead and De Niro his villainous foil.
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For character actors who become ascendant, like Trejo, it’s natural for fans to wonder what the transition between anonymity and fame is like. That’s why ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian, who hosted Trejo’s talk, asked whether he ever got starstruck on a set.
“Robert De Niro,” Trejo said, suggesting that he was particularly intimidated after people working on the set had told him to be on his best behavior around the star. “And then I saw Robert De Niro, the first thing I said was, ‘Hey, Robert,’ and he’s all, ‘Yeah, yeah, take a picture with me!’ He called me over. And I’d already worked with Jon Voight, we did a couple of movies together, but I think that movie pushed my credibility up quite a bit…and it’s so weird, it’s like everybody thinks that when you get that big, it’s like you’re a diva, you know? It’s completely the opposite. The guy’s unreal to work with. You’d see him helping a grip. It’s like, ‘This is our job, this is what we do, we’re blessed.’”
Trejo, a former criminal who reformed after prison and became a Hollywood star, has joked in the past about his experience on Heat.
“It was an incredible cast: De Niro, Pacino, Kilmer, Jon Voight…and then Michael Mann would say to me: ‘Stop stealing the scenes, you’re too f—ing real!’” Trejo told The Standard in December.
No word yet on whether the star might be tempted to return for Heat 2, which Mann is set to produce soon based on a book he released last year.
