DANNY TREJO

Actor, Restaurateur

photographed by SHAYAN ASGHARNIA at TREJO’S COFFEE & DONUTS

ARRESTED FOR the first time at ten, Trejo was a hardened juvie bouncing around California gladiator academies before fetching up at San Quentin with a string of priors, a heroin habit, and a bad attitude. When released in 1969, he’d kicked junk and found God. A stint as a drug counselor led to his first movie role—an extra in 1985’s Runaway Train. From there, he meandered through movie and television projects, achieving stardom with memorable turns in Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse, as the wheelman in Michael Mann’s crime epic Heat, and as the duplicitous cartel mule Tortuga in Breaking Bad. His L.A-based Trejo’s Tacos and Trejo’s Co ee & Donuts are the latest manifestations of his methodical ambition. As his Breaking Bad character informs the DEA: “Tortuga means turtle, and that’s me. I take my time, but I always win.”

WALKER