The Jordan Harbinger Show - 398: Danny Trejo | Inmate #1

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Danny Trejo (@officialDannyT) is an instantly-recognizable actor, producer, and restauranteur with a resume that includes crime, hard time, and battling his own addictions while helping troubled youth overcome theirs. His latest project is the documentary Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo. What We Discuss with Danny Trejo: What it was once like for Danny to ponder if he was doing robberies to support his drug habit, or doing drugs to support his robbery habit. How Danny got his act together after spending 10 years in and out of every prison in California. How Danny walked onto a Hollywood movie set as a drug counselor and left as a bona fide actor. Why Danny doesn't do his own stunts. How Danny has maintained sobriety for over 50 years -- and continues to help others maintain theirs. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/398 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up on the Jordan Harbinger show. Prison has a taste. Put one of those fake pennies, the lead one, in your mouth, and keep it there. That's the taste of pressure. That's the taste of anxiety. That's the taste of fear. That's the taste of everything. You feel it.

That's what you walk around with. And when you finally lose that taste, you've decided whether you're going to be predator or prey. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the source. stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Astronauts, entrepreneurs,

spies and psychologists, even the occasional national security strategist, each show turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. Today, ex-con turned icon Danny Trejo. You might recognize him as machete or aka the Mexican villainy every movie ever. He's been in over 350 films. Just go ahead, Google him. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about. He's not just one of the most prolific actors in history, but the reason he looks the part is because as a child, drug addict, and criminal, Trejo was in and out of jail for 11 years. He was hooked on heroin at age 12. Doing some armed robberies, of course,

landed him in prison, where he got sober and has remained so for over 50 years. His persona at first glance, it's a little menacing, I assume, that came in handy in prison. Despite being known for playing intimidating and violent characters, he's widely known as being one of the nicest and friendliest actors in Hollywood. He's been described as a joy to work with by many co-stars. You'll hear on the episode, he's just a gem of a guy. In films, of course, he's been shot, stabbed, crushed, beaten, and eaten hundreds of times at this point. And this is just a feel-good episode. You know, I really came away with a positive impression.

I enjoyed this conversation, and I think you will as well. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and celebrities, every single week. It's because of my network, and I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they either subscribe to the course, they contribute to the course, or both. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. Now, here's Danny Trejo. I'm excited for this because we're both big on second chances. I volunteer in prison. I know you hire at risk youth felons to work in your restaurants. And I actually volunteered at Susanville and in Kern County. I know you were in Susanville.

I was lightweight and Walterweight champion in Susanville boxing. They don't have boxing anymore in the band, but in the 60s they did. You know, no. There's a guy there at Maurice Harper that fought. In fact, they changed the age limit at the big fight place in New York. I always forget gardens, gardens, gardens, garden. Madison Square Garden. Yeah, because of his age.

He fought a main event. He could only fight eight rounds because he was 17. Jeez. That seems now that's a kid back then. I don't know if that was a kid back then. Well, look, you've got to be one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood. Over 300 movies. I assume you don't remember most of those because how could you, right?

No. I'll be in a foreign country somewhere and I'll be watching TV and I go, hey, look, I'm in this. And I'm speaking. I speak in German. Yeah, German. I was going to say Spanish, but you already know Spanish. Yeah. You've played a bad guy a lot on camera, but I also know that you had a rough start and a lot of the acting you do is

less like, hey, fictional character and more like, hey, act like you did like 50 years ago, 30 years ago, right? Eddie Bunker, Eddie Bunker was, we were doing, we were acting, and this director said, I want to kick in this door. They're all stunt people. So kicking this door and you're robbing this poker game. I kicked in the door and I sock somebody with a rifle and I fell over and I grabbed this one guy and put him down and screamed at him, you know,

you haven't killed anybody all day. You know, move, and I'll kill you. And the, cut, cut. Danny, where did you study? I never get that. And I looked at any bunker. I said, let me see, Vaughn's Market, Safeway.

Right, like, rob, literally robbing stores that they saw it off shotgun. It was like, and we just laughed. And the director, guy, said, he says the first half of my life was a character study. Yeah. from actually robbing stores with a sawed-off. I know sawed-off shotgun was a weapon of choice back then.

I don't know. Yeah. That probably makes a lot of people think twice about, like, being a hero. You're not getting my money. Yeah. It does. It does.

You know, it's like a lot of times, if you pull out a little 38 snub-nows or a little small gun, one of those athletes, I can do it, you know, because little bullets hurt, too. They don't understand that. But there's more chance. But when somebody's looking at a saw-off shotgun, they kind of figure, that whatever they got isn't worth what you got. Yeah, probably, yeah, I would imagine that to be the case. You first got arrested at age 10, assault and battery, then grand theft.

Auto in your teens, robin liquor stores. I read you robbed a store with a hand grenade. I just wanted to know where a teenager gets a hand grenade. That's... This was later on. This was like, we did a robbery, we ended up with this hangarade. So I tried it, and it was very simple. You know, when you hold a hang grenade and you got your hand on the pin,

and you ask somebody for some money, they think twice, you know, because you can see them counting, because in the movies, they got to 10. You know what I mean? It's like, you know,

where can I get to? By the time this insane son of a bitch counts to 10, and you usually get what you want, so we did. I mean, Dennis was behind me with a rifle, but I just, you know,

had this hand grenade. Somebody somewhere's telling the story about the time they got robbed with a kid holding a hand grenade, I would imagine, or got a lot of, lot of mileage out of that. I say all this not to obviously glorify any crime, but like playing the role of an inmate or something like your first role, not a huge stretch.

Well, let me tell you something. There's nothing glamorous about robbery. I ended up doing a lot of time in the penitentiary. And one of the reasons that I'll take a role, I'll take a role. But if the bad guy wins, I won't take it. Because now that's the wrong message. Bad guy either gets killed or go to prison. Okay, change the script. You know, and that's the way it is. Interesting. So you won't do anything where the criminal, bad guy, whatever, ends up on top. Never have. I've done over 330-some movies and never have. Never done anything where the bad guy gets away. Now, in Machete, I was a good bad guy. And I did a lot of damage. Yeah. Though that's Grind House. It's like artistic, ridiculous. Nobody's like, I want to be that guy because it's like, it's like saying I want to be bad.

Superman or Lex Luthor. Like, it doesn't really, it doesn't really matter. Oh, it was so cool, though. It's like, when I, after I did machete, Halloween came around and all these little Mexican kids were coming dressed as machete. I thought it was so cool that we finally got like a superhero and he doesn't have to wear tights, you know? No, but you do have a lot of, there's a lot of sleeveless leather vest moments.

I don't know. That might be, that might be the new tights, Danny. I'm not sure. You're in solitary after this prison riot and you're asking God for forgiveness. But it sounds like if you're in solitary after a riot, like, you know, what are you thinking? I didn't really ask for forgiveness. I just asked God to let me die with dignity because, you know, it was alleged that I had hit a guard with a rock. That means the gas chamber.

Oh, man. Rapecacho had hit a free person. That's the gas chamber. Henry had kicked the coach. That's any assault. in prison, it's like you're in danger of going to the gas chamber. And drying blood on an inmate is a life sentence. So I just said, let me die with dignity because I didn't want to go out crying and yelling and pee in my pants and she, you know, so. Yeah, I don't blame you. When you were

robbing, was it just to support the drug habit or was there some teenage adrenaline in there where you're like, this is fun? Let me tell you something. Once you start doing robberies and you're using heroin, the robberies become addictive. You don't know. whether you're doing robberies to support your drug habit or doing drugs to support your robbery habit because they, you know, the adrenaline is the same. It becomes very, very addicted. And the first time when I was on runaway train and I heard a director say, action, it was like doing a robbery. It was like you were under complete control. It's really funny. I fought Eric Roberts. Well, I had trained Eric Roberts to fight, and when the director watched action, you know, Eric turned into a store clerk.

It was so funny. And it was like, I could do this. And I loved it, man. I just, I loved the adrenaline rush. I love the slow motion. I love watching Eric be scared of me. So you basically had to train a guy to box and then, what, go beat him up, but not for real? Yeah.

Well, you know what? It was like, I ran into a guy. named Eddie Bunker on this movie called Runaway Train. And I was there to make 50 bucks. I wasn't there for any other reason, right? And I was a drug counselor, and one of the kids I was counseling was with me on this show.

We sent out by this agency, it was called The movie was Runaway Train. And I'm there, and I'm staring at this guy. I'm thinking, God, I know this guy. And then the second AD told me to take off my shirt. I took off my shirt, and I got this big tattoo. And he said, leave your shirt off, so now I'm standing there like always with no shirt. And Eddie comes up and says,

hey, you're Danny Trejo. And I go, yeah. And he says, Danny, I'm Eddie Bunker. I saw you win the lightweight in the welterweight title in San Quentin. I said, Eddie, what is up? This guy became famous throughout the whole penitentiary because we used to call him the brain because he knew how to write writs and he knew how to write them grammatically correct and in the language of the court. Because otherwise, they just throw them out. You know, a writ has to be absolutely correct. So he would charge $100 for reading your transcript and $100 if he wrote a writ, you know, for as many rits as he wrote. So this guy, every time he read somebody's transcript, he made about $400, you know, for writing the writs.

And so he became very wealthy. And I knew him in Quentin. And so he was there. He was a bank robber. And we had known each other. And then on the movie set, he had wrote the screenplay to runaway train. He adapted the screen. And he asked him, Dad, Trey, what are you doing here?

I said, making 50 bucks. And he says, are you still boxing? And I said, Eddie, I'm 40 years old. I don't get in the face anymore. And he said, we need somebody to train one of the actors how to box. I said, what's it paid? And I'm making 50 bucks. And he said, 320 a day.

And I said, how bad you want this guy beat up? No, I didn't. No, this is a hit. You don't get. $350 bucks for, and he says, no, no,

you gotta be careful. This actor's really high-strung. He might sock you. I said, Eddie, for 350 bucks, give him a stick. I've been beat up for free. And it's like,

you show me Eric. Eric was as pretty as his sister, okay? And you can size somebody up and kind of know that, God, I wish he was my cell partner in prison. And so I started training

and Eric Roberts had a box for this movie. And they're paying me $3.20 a day. You know what I mean? And it was like, I was okay. So I worked with him for about four days. And then the guy that they had cast to fight Eric and the movie comes in. And he's the prettiest Spaniard you'd ever seen. Man, he's prettier than Antonio Manderas.

Okay. So if you can imagine there's a huge prison movie. Everybody in the audience looks like. like they would eat your baby, you know, bite up, take a bite out of your dad. And they're like, there's all these mean-looking guys. And there's, it's pretty. You don't know if they're fighters or strippers in a box. And Andre Kajalowski's going to go, oh, he said, no contrast, no contrast.

This is the director, this Russian guy. Yeah, he's Andre Kajalowski. The love of my life, I swear to God. He goes, look, Eric. Oh, and then he goes to the Spaniard kid, right? He goes, look, oh, no, contrast. And then he comes to me, and he goes, ah, contrast. I look at it, he has he making fun of me?

He said, shut up, Mexican. So I just tell me, right? So I got picked to fight Eric because of the contrast. First thing I said was Eric, don't wear them shorts, because he had on tight shorts. And you can't wear tight shorts in prison. Okay, but he's, no, no, this looks, my character look good. Yeah, well, you'd be myself partner with them shorts.

So I wore regular boxing shorts, and I got to fight Eric in Andre says, you be in movie, and you fight Eric in movie, and you be my friend. Now, if you have a prison background, you're always a little skeptical if somebody says, you be my friend. Because, okay, yeah, okay, sucker, what does that entail? You know, and then he kisses me on both cheeks and walks away, right? I looked at Eddie Bunker. I said, Eddie, I'm going to fight the kid for 320.

But if I got to kiss that old man, I want more money. Eddie says, no, he's European. And that's what I found out, Europeans kiss. Yeah. Well, I kissed that old man every day of my life. He got me a sag card. I didn't even know what sag was. So you got discovered.

That doesn't even happen anymore, probably. I won't imagine. You never hear about that. Eddie said, I said, what happened? Because everybody's rushing around saying he's not sag. And Andre says, make him sag. And walked away. Everybody started calling me Mr. Treo. What happened?

Mr. Trail, would you like some coffee? Yeah, yeah. You got upgraded, man. Eddie says you just caught lightning in a bottle. Believe me, I did. I did the first five years of my career as inmate number one, you know, a little guy. But I got paid $3.20 a day.

I got paid. And the directors that had seen runaway training, they say, take off your shirt. I take off my shirt. And they say, say something prison-y. You know, and we're killing all you, suckers. Oh, that was perfect. You know, so I got paid $320. Every time I did a movie.

And, God, I worked all the time. I made my insurance the first year I was sagged. And nobody's ever done that unless they're like, you know, Marky Wahlberg or some pretty good. You know. Sure. Were you ever afraid of being typecasts? Like you're always the mean Chicano guy with tattoos?

No, but listen, listen, you know what? The first time I got interviewed by some girl fresh out of interview school, little Mexican girl that was La Rasa. And she goes, Danny, don't you feel you're being stereotype? And I looked at her. And I said, there's what? So you're always playing the mean Chicano dude with tattoos. You're being typecast.

I looked at her and I said, hey, I am the mean Chicano dude with tattoos. And it was like, I was getting paid. Do you understand? Because I was typecast, we opened the door for a whole lot of people. Now we got Latins playing Latin's. You know, Ricky Schroeder can't play a Mexican anymore. And a cowboy. Yeah, I noticed they were doing a lot of that.

Like, this is a Mexican guy. It's like, okay, that is definitely Ricky Schroeder, like trying to speak some busted-ass Spanish in a cowboy movie. I guess you never needed to go to acting school. Well, you know, on my resume, it says San Quentin Drama Arts. Like, oh, is that near the prison? Oh, yeah, it's near the prison. It's in the front, in the backyard. You love John Wayne as a kid. Do you see yourself as a John Wayne type figure? I can see that. You know, you've done twice as many movies as he has.

Yeah, well, you know what? I've done three times in many movies. But Machete, I loved Machete. I loved the fact that he was a really bad good guy, a real good bad. He was the killer. He didn't play. And I loved that. And I told you. I mean, I almost cried when kids came to my door dressed as machete, you know. And it was like, wow, we got a superhero. We really do.

He's a bad dude. And the painted mustache was so cool. It was just, it was like warm my heart. And I thought, wow, you know, thank you, Lord. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Danny Trejo. We'll be right back. And now, back to Danny Trejo. on the Jordan Harbinger show.

Some of the stories of your life are almost like Forrest Gump in nature, right? Like this car wreck. Run, Forrest! Yeah. Run, Danny, run. You have so many experiences like this. There was one that I caught when I was looking at news. There's a car wreck and there was a special needs kid in the car and you're keeping them really calm.

You had kind of an interesting takeaway in the news interview that everything good that's happened to you has happened as a direct result of helping someone else. Can you speak to that a little bit? everything. God, when I first got out of prison, me and Danny Levitop, we started a gardening business. We didn't even have a lawnmower. I just had a 59 Chevy Impala with a big trunk. So we would go around. Danny was like a good-looking little white kid, you know, so I'd say, go ask him, you know, and he'd go up the door. Hi, can I mow your lawn? Oh, sure, nice little white kid, you know. And then I'd show up, you know. I keep my shirt on, though, and we would borrow, do you have a lawnmower? We'd take their lawnmower, their trash bags, and go

around the neighborhood and mow longs, you know, and then we'd come back and mo there's at the end of the day with their lawnmower. And when I went to prison, there was this one lady and her family, she had two boys and a husband. They had a beautiful yard. Like, they had dichondra grass. Nobody grows dichondra grass because it's the kind of grass that you have to like sing it at night, a lullaby. It's crazy. And then when I came back out of prison, it was like a forest. I said, mom, what happens? He said, you know, Miko, one son got killed in Vietnam, and one got murdered on the street, and her husband committed suicide in her house. Oh, my God.

She turned into the witch lady of the neighborhood. You know, she turned all the kids into cats. We got her yard looking kind of good, and this old guy, big guy, comes over, hillbilly, right? He comes over and, hey, poncho. The minute he called me Poncho, I charged him $10. What? He says, how much you charge in your lady? I said, nothing, she's a crazy lady in.

Well, come over to my. yard and bring Pablo Danny Levitoff, bring Pablo with you, that's another $10 for and this guy told us what he wanted done to his yard. And then he goes to his garage, opens his garage. This looked like the

Taj Mahal of garages, okay? The walls were painted blue and if the hammer was missing, you could see it because they had a white hammer. You don't cut what I mean? Yeah. I kept telling you, your hammer's gone, you know? And he said, look, I love

He loved gardening. He had every gardening tool known to mankind. I can't do it because I had a heart attack. My wife won't let me. I will give you this gardening supply if you do my yard. I said, sir, I will come over and wash your back at bathtub. Am I kidding? We got so much equipment. We bought a truck because it wouldn't fit in my 59. That's what it was really the start of our gardening business. Everything good. Everything good. When I sold that business, me and Danny sold that business, we had like trucks. We had eight guys working for us. We even had like shirts that said, D&D gardening, because his name was Danny, too. D&D gardening. Had that little guy running with a long more, you know what I mean? He said, everything good. Everything good has happened to me. It's happened as a direct result of

help with someone else. And that's the promise that I made. I made a promise to God, if you let me die with dignity, I will say your name every day and I will do whatever I can for my fellow man. everybody that I know, Jordan, let me tell you. Everybody that I call a friend has thermal underwear and socks in the trunk of their car. And you can bank on it because they will pass out thermal underwear to homeless people. They'll give socks. They'll give them dog food for their dog. I mean, that's what we do.

We're the guys that were driving down the street and see you and your wife trying to move a refrigerator. We'll stop. Of course, we'll yell from across the street because if we rush up on you, you'll 911. They're stealing our refrigerator. But we'll, hey, let us help you, man. And we'll walk up and just help you and love it when you try to give us $20. Now, no, no, we're okay, buddy. Thank you, that's funny. I can imagine the 911 call. Like, hey, somebody who looks like Machete, you ever see that anyway? He's trying to steal my refrigerator. Sir, that's just Danny Trejo. He's probably just being. nice. Try not to get stabbed.

Thank you. I heard you don't do your own stunts, which I thought was kind of surprised because you seemed like the type who would, you know, after all that boxing. Hey, let me tell you something. Stunt guys, they got mortgages too. And every time one of them actors tries to do his own stunts, okay, first of all, let me tell you, let me tell you, I'm going to call all the actors that say they do their own stunts.

You're lying, okay? Because first of all, no, listen. Jordan, if I got $27 million invested in this movie, okay, and I see my number one actor who, if he gets hurt, puts 300 people out of work and cost the insurance company a whole lot of money, I'm going to say, hell no. Yeah, it's too risky. The insurance companies won't let you do your own stunts. Yeah, it's just, I would imagine that's way too risky.

Let me say that. My stunt guy is named Norm Moraw. And let me tell you something. He looks so much. My daughter was asking him for money on the set. Dad, give me some money, okay, because I'm going to go buy this hat. And Norm goes, okay. And then, wait a minute.

How old is Norm? He's younger than I am, thank God. Yeah, he's doing stunts. You can't do the crap. He does at 76, you know what I mean? You've been. sober for 50 years, over 50 years. 52 in August, and I loved every day of it.

And people say, so hard to stay sober. No, I learned to think of the consequences. Do you understand? Really easy. And some people, I guess people that had parties when they were getting drunk, I imagined myself showering with 60 men again. In prison. Trying not to look.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? I imagine myself being, hey, blue, get over here. So, no, I've seen the bad side of alcohol and drugs. You've mentioned that actually the prison has a large warehouse of talent and also insanity. That's a shame all the wasted potential you see in there. I call it a warehouse of insanity. It's a brooding ground.

And right now, they took the weights out. They took the boxing out. They took all the recreation out. It's really sad, but they don't realize it. What they're doing is they're. bringing all the gangs together. All we're going to do is calisthenics and we're going to do them as a gang, all right? Mexican Mafia Aryan brother, guerrilla family, all of them. You see them. They'd all do them. They're all doing burpees together. They're all doing. So it makes a unit.

So before when you had weights, well, only the guys that were interested in weights were doing weights. You know what I mean? I got, it's funny. I got Craig Munson, who's one of my best friends, right? It was Mr. Whirl, I think in 82 or 83. But he didn't mean. know how to politic with the guy that runs all that weightlifting shit. I forget his name. You know, like Schwarzenegger and all them guys knew how to politic with this guy. You know what I mean? And so they stayed on his nuts at.

But Craig coming out of prison, you don't call me, boy, you know, fool. Craig Munter was bigger than all of us. He's bigger than Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger wouldn't get near it. Wow. Yeah, that's right, Arnold. You heard me. None of them, man.

Because we used to be at the weight pit. And when Arnold, all those guys were in the weight pit, and Craig came up, right, 24-inch biceps and pressing almost 580, when he won't, they'd all split. They don't leave. And so these guys, they're into weight, so they stay at the weights. The only reason they took the weights out, when we did blood in, blood out, we donated $100,000 worth of weights because you couldn't pay the excess. We donated to their weight, but then they took the weights out.

But I think the wait yard is the only place where you see the races getting together in the same area. So do you think, I mean, in prison it sounds like this is, I hate to sort of phrase it as like an educational experience, obviously. But, I mean, do you still have nightmares about prison? The consequences you ever think like, all right, I'm going to wake up and be in prison? You know, it's funny you say that because I've had some really beautiful days, you know, I mean, just like days that like, you know, the sun's out. Kids are skipping. People are laughing. Girls love me. This whole thing is like, wow.

And then I go to sleep. And I swear to God, I feel like somebody's waking me. I went, hey, Treyo, let's go to Chow. What? Oh, no. Yeah. You were mumbling something about De Niro. You're all right, man?

You need to see the shrink? Yeah. Yeah, my life's a dream, Jordan. My life is a dream. And my life's a dream because I can't do enough for people. I have to. And I don't condemn or anybody that isn't doing stuff for people. You know what I mean?

If you had Arnold Schwarzenegger go to a high school and say, hey, you guys can do better or whatever. They were like, yeah, you know what I mean? But he won't do it. And I can't condemn him for that. I can't condemn people for not wanting to help because they don't owe. I owe my life. Do you understand? I owe my life.

And because of the fact I talked to God a couple of days. ago and that's, hey, Mom, how am I doing? He said, hey, Triggle, you're almost out of hell. Keep it up. So I'm working. I got more to pay. It's almost like, I guess it's not where you start. It's maybe where you end up at the end of the end of the same.

That's one of the things. I use it juvenile hall. It's not where you start because the kids in juvenile hall. They feel like they've been thrown away. Yeah. It's a program meant to make you feel like you've been thrown away. It makes you feel like you want to go to camp. And it makes you feel like you want to go to youth authority and makes you feel like you want to go to the penitentiary.

So are you saying that the juvenile system that we have actually encourages more wasteful criminal acting instead of rehabilitation? I would have to say that our whole system is kind of based on, you got to remember, if you look at juvenile justice system, Department of Corrections, spell backwards, spells recidivism. I'm trying to spell it backwards in my head, and I realize that's a metaphor. That's a metaphor. A joke. A joke. But you understand what I'm saying? They're meant.

You understand? If kids stop going to juvenile hall, if kids stop going to youth authority, if people stop going to the penitentiary, if our thing goes down, our economy suffers. Every place you put a prison, a town blows up. Do you understand, California's got more people in prison than some countries? Yeah, that's insane. Yeah. And so it's like, wait.

a minute, what is this? Okay, so 10% of the people that are in prison belong in prison, okay? Don't let them suckers out. But the other 90% we got to work with. You can work with them. I would imagine that, like, you grew up in an era that, especially for Mexicans and people that aren't white, like everything has changed so much in the United States since then. Because when you started, how many actual Hispanic people were in movies? Like, I wasn't around them, but probably not a ton. I got to say this, okay? Any Latino that was in the movies kind of was like from Juan Strasbourg's or Kulia Art or whatever they were.

Fancy. Fesbians, I guess. You know, I started in 85 and, wow, you know, I guess Barrio Mexicans, I think I was like the first one. I mean, straight out of the almost he went to drama art, it's one of them school. Juliard or something like that. Yeah. None of them like me, you know what I mean? Because, you know, say, quitting drama arts.

So, but I work more than most of them. So when I came in, I didn't know what typecaste was. I didn't know the difference between standing here, getting paid 50 bucks or being the Lee. I used to, we were all doing the same thing, really, actually. And so I think I kicked in a lot of door. And I think it was because I didn't know what being typecast was. You know, I was who I was. You know what I mean? I was being who I was.

I was an ex-convian. I love the fact that when they have a present movie, I know I'm in it. And it was funny. One of the reasons I like kind of like frowned on Edward James is when he said any Mexican that works on blood in, blood out can't work on American me. It was two movies about Mexicans. Are you stupid? It's like there ain't that many of us here.

So you know, and a couple of guys snuck in did both of them. So it was like, you know, I was in this thing at first not to better my race just to be in movies. And then I realized, wait a minute, I got a hell of a platform. You know, and that's all the movies are for me. They're not new. My mom even said, I'm not here to make somebody's day. I mean, I'm not here to be a movie star. The good Lord put me here so that I can sign every autograph, take every picture, go to school, tell Mexican kids that, hey, you can do it.

You know, this isn't that. You know, this is all you got to do. Every time I make a movie, I get three or four kids out of the neighborhood. Come on, let's go. You're going to be in the movies and put them in the movie. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Machete, Danny Trejo. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show.

Your support of our advertisers is why we are able to keep doing this. So I would love if you would support our sponsors. To find out who they are and take advantage of those deals, go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. and don't forget we've got worksheets for every episode. The link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now, for the conclusion of our episode with Danny Trejo. You mentioned before, like giving out food and socks and underwear.

I know I've heard you give away diapers. When you were working on, was it Death Wish? Were Charles Bronson, the super famous action star for people who don't know who that is? He gave you some pretty good advice, and it seems like you took it to heart. You know what I'm talking about? I was bawled out this kid, right? And I told him I was going to beat him to do. death. And then, and he was an asshole. And I turned around and Bronson says,

you're like a drug counselor, aren't you? I go, yeah. And he goes, I like the way you counsel. But it was Eddie Bunker who said, the whole world can think you're a movie star, but you can't. Yeah. And that is it. And when he said that, I said, why? He just, come here. And we walk by a movie star, a real movie star, right? And we're sitting there, we're listening to all the people talk to him and on his nuts out. I love you, love you. And then he walked away. And we just, that asshole, I'd love to kick him in these teeth, you know.

Wow. You see? Because he's a movie star. If you call Robert De Niro a movie star, first thing he'll say is, I'm an actor. And it's like, no, I don't want to be a movie star. Movie star is the ones asking for green M&Ms and shit. You know what I mean? I'm here to work.

You know what I mean? It's like, you know, I'm here to work. And that's me. I realize that the directors. get hired to direct and the actors get hired to act and it's funny, I worked with this one actor I can't say any name, I wanted so bad

but I can't. But every time the director said something, he would go, uh, excuse me, and he would want to like rearrange everything. Yeah, and direct the whole thing. And everybody got tired of it, right? I mean, you know, and finally I said, hey,

there's one damn director on this set. Get over here, man. You know, no, I'm just like, just shut off. Come on. He's dumbied, you know what I mean? Because when I got on the set, he wouldn't ask shit. You know, he's like, you're going to get paid the same bread no matter what. Why do extra work, right? Why become the director, too?

Yeah, you know, he's got his job. He got hired to tell us what to do. Out of 350, is it 350 plus movies now? You don't even know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think I got more than anybody.

I know I've died 65 times. I have the record for dying in the more. movies. Really? Everybody says, why are you so proud of that? Because every time I died, I went to the bank. Yeah, that's a wrap. All right, I'll see you guys at J.P. Morgan later on.

I'm out. I'm done. Out of the 350-plus movies, do you have any favorites? I mean, heat's got to be up there, right? That's it. I mean, you're Desperado. I loved that movie. Desperado, I kept fighting Robert for a line.

Give me a line. No, no, your character's better. Give me a line. And he wouldn't give me a line, right? In fact, I even got an Indian dude, right, this is a good friend of mine, right, RJ, he was a stunt guy. He says, Danny, give me a guy that looks mean and can say something. Oh, you're going to give the Indian guy a line. What about me, man?

I'm your cousin. And then the first time we got a question and answer, a Q&A together, they asked, Danny, in the movie Desperado, your character didn't say a word and made it so strong. Was that an actor's choice? Absolutely. Yeah, they tried to give me lines, but I just, I realized that, I said, wait, my character. Yeah, I have much more of a mystique without any lines, so I insisted. Robert wanted to choke me, you know what I mean? But Robert said, Robert gave me a compliment.

He said, Danny, let me tell you something. You can say more with your face than some leading actors can say with a mile of dialogue. And I thought, wait a minute. Is that a compliment? Well, I can say, I can say, how can you pretty easy, you know? But, you know, and so it's like, I learned, you know, it's like, I learned, man. And it's like the secret of my success was shutting up. The movie, He'd got to give children and talk about.

That actually moved me up in statute as far as being an actor. You know, it's like, wow, it's like, I'm a real actor. I'm with Robert De Niro. And Robert De Niro is amazing to watch. It's like, he makes it so easy. Robert De Niro, I did heat with him, right? And we buddyed up. It's awesome, man, which is so cool.

And in fact, Robert De Niro called me one time, and he was coming in to L.A., and he had to bring his daughter and a friend. of hers and they wanted to go salsa dancing and he wasn't going to have time. Did I know anybody? I got this message on my machine, okay? I think I still got it because I used to play it every time. Hey, hold on, hold on. Danny, we heard that two years ago.

So you're just playing it for anyone that walks in like, hey, it's Robert De Niro. He just wanted you to take my kids salsa dancing. So when he came aboard on machete, that immediately jumped machete into a different category. He's like going, I run into him right at craft service and we're like looking at each other. Is that like the chow hall for movies? Well, yeah, you know, it's like what all this good stuff is. And he goes, you, hey, you, huh, huh, you, number one. Because we always joke about being number one on the call sheet because they had a call sheet, number one, Robert De Niro.

They had another call sheet over here, number one, Pacino. So I go, you, he's going, you, number one. Hey, I looked at him. I'm trying to figure out what to say. All I can say was, can I get you. It's just a coffee, Mr. De Niro. Come on. I'm not being number one with De Niro in the movie.

It's a joke, you know what I mean? But he was awesome in it. And he made the movie, really. Come on. I know that. You know what I mean? Did you ever think at any point during your career, especially during movies with like De Niro, Puccino,

I mean, your life could have actually ended like it did in heat where you got shot in a robbery or whatever it was. I can't remember now. Like, you could have ended like that for real. You know what? That's one of the reasons why my mom, my daughter, they could never watch that because that's what they said. I remember my daughter when she was crying. Why are you crying?

I'm going to ask you, Daddy, your life could have ended that way, the way you were. And it's, wow, I thought you know what you're right. And so yeah. But De Niro was just so awesome. And that was so real. That's the one they can't watch. That's the scene your family can't watch. Yeah, I mean, it's a gross scene.

They do a close up of you. And I think he had like, you know, your head's wide open or something like that. It was the best death scene of people still talk about that. And they try to mimic that. It was funny because when I was talking to Bob. No, nobody calls him Bob. When I talk to De Niro here, he looks at me and goes, how do you want to play this trail? And I said, what do you think about?

And he says, you know, I think you're dead. And I looked at him. He said, all you've got left is enough breath to beg me to kill you. And when he said that for just a split second, I want to say, Nah, Bob, that's not the way I see it, man. Look. I got a different vision for this. I have a vision.

But, yeah, you know, that's it. You got it right there. That's the same way. We're on the same page. I did it the way he said. And it was like, I mean, I am more proud of that death scene than I am of a lot of movies that I've done, you know, because first of all, you know, Robert De Niro killed me. Secondly, I did it just like he said, and it came out awesome, you know.

Yeah, I think Robert De Niro is probably your favorite guy that's killed you or you have any other top? No, De Niro's the best. You're 77. You've lived several lives at this point. 76. Oh, sorry, excuse me. I got to correct one of these articles. Let me take that again. You're 76. You've lived several lives. lives at this point, and you're still going. I mean, do you now feel like you're the good guy or the bad guy, the hero or the villain? They did a documentary all my life, and it was called inmate number one, and I really liked the way it came out. It came out because it was about redemption. It wasn't about just being, ooh, I was a convict, ooh, it was just really about, it doesn't matter where

you start. It matters where you end, you know, and I'm on my way to ending. It's a pretty good spot. I want to take that to high schools. I want to take that to, and show, wait a minute, you know what I mean? I don't care how you look at things right now. It's how you're going to end up. I was really impressed with my Uncle Gilbert. My dad was hardworking. You know, my dad was a hardworking guy and come on with sweat rings, you know, devoted to his job. God, that uncle of my, Uncle Gilbert, he always had a roll of cash like this, right? And it was like maybe a, maybe a 20 on the outside and the rest were 20s, hundreds, and 50s, you know, and it wasn't like a Chicago role, you know, and he always had, you know, $200 shoes and that was the left one and nice pants

and Tommy Bahama shirt or something. And that impressed me. And that's what I want to be. And he got that doing drugs and doing robberies. The price you've got to pay is so heavy and you can come so close to losing your life. In prison, there's only two kinds of people in prison, there's predators and they're prey. That's it. And you've got to decide every damn morning, what are you going to be? And I know a lot of people that decide I'm prey, fucker, I don't care, because I'm tired, you know, kiss me. It doesn't matter. I know a lot of people that took an elevator off the fifth tier. There's no elevator. You know, and just going on and hit the ground. I know a lot of people that cut their wrist. They just, prison has a taste. Put one of those fake pennies,

the lead ones in your mouth and keep it there that's the taste of pressure that's the taste of anxiety that's the taste of fear that's the taste of everything you feel it that's what you walk around with and when you finally lose that taste

you've decided whether you're going to be predator or prey you know it's the only way you can lose it and it's a I don't care all the celebrities every one of them okay all of you and if you want to call me a liar I dare you every one of them

them that went to prison, paid protection. You had to. You had to. You understand. You had to pay protection. If you try to tell me, then I'll slap me in the mouth, because I know, if I'm doing 55 years, and you're here for drunk driving, and you got people that love you and send a new money, and I got nobody, you know, you're paying. And that's just the way it is. What I did, I started a protection ring. Me, Tyrone, Cookie, and Frog, we had a hell of a protection ring going and you would pay us so people wouldn't hurt you. Out here, you would call it extortion. In prison, it's survival. When you have that, are you actually protecting people? Or is it just like, you have to? You have to. No, you have to. Because somebody else

sees him a spray. You know, you as an 18-year-old kid go to prison for the first time. It's like, he's candy. It's that simple. And at first, You got these little hard hats because they boxed on the streets. You don't box in prison. You know, you box in the ring, but in prison, you understand me, understand me. If I get into a fight with you, that means we're going to tussle around on the ground. We're going to get shot at, and they're going to catch us. And it's the same punishment as if I stab you.

So now, if I come up and stab you three times in the back and walk away before you drop, I won. Do you understand? And I didn't get caught. It's easier to get caught fighting somebody than it is stabbing somebody. That's the way it is in prison.

Yeah. Do you understand? I get four guys to stand around it. I hit you three times and we all walk away and you fall. And I won. And nobody can say,

ooh, you fought dirty. No, I won. They're going to say you won. Prison is the most right now place in the world. It is all about right now. What are we doing right now? Am I killing you or are you killing me?

That's what it is. Did you ever think that you would get out of prison at all when you were in there? You said it right there. I never thought I'd get out of prison. If that riot wouldn't have happened and I didn't go to the hole, I'd still be in prison. That was your wake-up call. Yeah. Yeah.

That was the one. Again, you understand, I knew about 12-step programs. I knew about all them. And so there's no worse feeling than a body full of drugs and alcohol. And I'm mindful of some damn 12-step call, some 12-step meeting, you know, it'll fight you. You were a thug, and now you're a celebrity legend, if you will. What do you think of the rappers, the boy band guys who get famous? And then they're trying to roll with their street.

You know, they're like rolling in their Ferrari, trying to get street credit. You know what? Let me say, we did a movie called Anaconda with jail. Oh, yeah. That's right. I saw that. Gosh, gorgeous. A little kiss from God's lips, right?

I'm on the Amazon. And we're talking, I know this, we're sitting in the backstage because I started this record label, right? And we're sitting backstage, and two of these rappers that died, hey, mother rag, and I'm looking at Ice Cube.

And he's looking at me, and he goes, on the street, somebody slapped their mouth. And I go, you know what? I would love to just go up there right now and grab them by the neck and call them a bitch. You know what I mean?

Just straight up. Shut up, bitch. And, uh, but, you know, your attorney's, my attorney has, has warned me about that. They'll sue, you know, and because it's like, come on, man, we, you know what? If you were a gangster, the last thing you want to do is let people know you're a gangster. Do you understand? That's the last thing. So I love all these guys with the tattoos.

and the piercings and the, my name's red jockass or whatever, right? And, man, get away from me. It's got, shut up. Let me tell me. My little cousin, Gilbert, did 38 years. He got out. And he's an electrician. He's working on the new Ram Stadium.

And then he was an usher at the BL, the awards, the BET. BET. Yeah, okay. And I told him, Gilbert, you'll be careful because you got a lot of them little rappers that think they're at the, you know, they're, you know, no, no, I'm cool, Danny, I'm cool, I'm cool, I'm cool. Gilbert's about 5-9, 5-10, a little buffed up, you know, but, and he called me when you see, Dan, yeah, yeah, I found out what you meant, oh, but you know what? When you stare at them and you got it in your eyes, because you understand you, in prison,

you learn how to say with your stare, with your eyes, look, I will kill you, I will go kill the guy that drag cleans your clothes, and then I'm going to do bad things to the rest of your family. You look at people with that stare, they tend to say, oh, wait a minute, sir, it immediately changed it. And he said, I had to give a couple of them that fulsome stare, and then they said, excuse me, you know, because there's certain things, you know, people can give you a mad dog look and you know it's phony. But if they give you that fulsome damn stare, it's like, wait a minute, I am right now staring at somebody that looks like Ted Bundy.

You know, so, you know, it's like, okay, I got you. And it's a different thing. And it doesn't matter. I mean, I've seen guys with all the muscles in the world. Get stabbed by a short Mexican in tennis shoes with a big knife, you know, fighting. I don't know to fight you. That's prison. Danny Trejo, thank you very much.

This has been a fun one. I wish we had more time. Thank you. And you live in San Jose. I go up to San Jose, so, hey. And if you come down to L.A. dinner's on me, homie, with your family. I would love that. I would love to come down.

I usually do these in person, but we can't because of COVID. I'd love to come try some tacos or something, man. Okay, well, when this is over, I'm going up to San Jose. We'll cruise, Dorian, King, and have dinner. I would love that. Thank you very much. Stay tuned. We've got a trailer of our interview with Moby, iconic musician and producer. This was a super real conversation about creativity, fame, mental health, money, and what really makes people happy and fulfilled. I hope he was really open with this one.

And even if you're not a fan of the music, I guarantee you will dig this episode. That's coming right up after the jump. I grew up in arguably the wealthiest town in the United States, Derry and Connecticut, but my mom and I were on food stamps and welfare. My first punk rock show was to an audience of one dog, and my first electronic music show was to Miles Davis.

I wanted to stop the show and patiently explained to the movie stars and the beautiful people that they'd made a mistake. They were celebrating me, but I was in nothing. I was a kid from Connecticut who wore secondhand clothes in the front seat of his mom's car while she cried and tried to figure out where she could borrow money to buy groceries. Now it was 1999. I was an insecure husband, but we kept playing, and the celebrities kept dancing and cheering. The weird thing is things started to go wrong when I stopped feeling that way.

In 1999, I thought that my career had ended. Yeah. My mom had died of cancer. I was battling substance abuse problems. I was battling panic attacks. I had lost my record deal. And I was making this one last album. I was like, okay, I'll make this album, I'll put it out, I'll move back to Connecticut,

I'll get a job teaching philosophy at some community college, and then all of a sudden, the world embraced me. I handled fame and wealth really disastrously. It was so humiliating. I wouldn't trade any of it. For more from Moby, including how he bounced back from a 400, drink per month booze habit, check out episode 196 of the Jordan Harbinger show. Thanks to Danny Trejo, his new documentary is called Inmate Number One based on, of course,

the role he usually plays in every movie ever. Links to all that will be in the website in the show notes. Please use our website. If you buy any books from any of the guests, that helps support the show. You know what's amazing about him is there was a car wreck, and many of you probably heard this story, there was a car wreck, this SUV got overturned. Danny Trahill runs to the rescue, ends up pulling out the people in the car wreck. There's a special needs kid in there. And he just ends up on the news. And it's like actor Danny Trejo rescues special needs child from car wreck. The guy is literally everywhere somehow. And as he said in the show, everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else. Everything.

That's what he told eyewitness news. And he said that on the show here as well. It holds true. He helps this young actor on set with his addiction. Now he's a globally renowned legend. after the car wreck, I'm not even kidding, after the car wreck, he goes and buys a lottery ticket like a scratcher, win 700 bucks. This is some Forrest Gump stuff right here. I love talking to Danny. Imagine working in Hollywood to get away from drugs and alcohol. Interesting strategy there, Danny. And if you're watching us on YouTube, you may have noticed he pulled up his shirt and showed us his tattoos. He once ran up to Salma Hayek and said, hey, I got a tattoo of you on my chest, which I can imagine was a little bit creepy at the time, but it turned out to be really,

it's a tamale label. It's not Salma Hayek, but he was counting. He met Barack Obama at a fundraiser, of course, as for as Gump type people do. And Obama recognized him and says, hey, you're a machete. So, of course, he's recognized by literally everyone. I mean, it's just amazing. And our final bit of trivia, to this day, Danny randomly carries a photo of actress Michelle Rodriguez in his wallet. I don't why he has a photo of Michelle Rodriguez in his wallet. He says, I love her. She reminds me of a little sister. If you're ever in a bar fight, Michelle Rodriguez has your back. Don't piss are off. So I'm not even sure exactly what I was going for with this interview with Danny Trejo. I I hope you all enjoyed it. I really had a blast with it. It's fun for me to occasionally do something that's a

little lighter than like terrorism, national security, election hacking, etc. Worksheets for this episode in the show notes, transcripts for the episode in the show notes. There's a video of this interview on our YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people such as Danny Trejo and manage relationships using systems and tiny habits over at our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig the well before you get thirsty. Most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course, they help out with the course. Join us. You'll be in Smart Company. This show is created in association with Podcast One and

My Amazing Team. That's Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie O'Campo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting a others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. You know somebody who likes Danny Trejo? Share this with him. You know somebody who's into Hollywood stories? Share it with them. Somebody likes feel good stories. Share it with them. Hopefully you find something great in every episode. Please do share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast.

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