Benicio Del Toro’s work in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has been widely praised ever since the film debuted last fall, and the man truly earns every syllable of it with his performance. Playing the stoic and organized Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, he is a keystone player in the story helping Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Bob Ferguson” evade authorities, and he steals every scene he’s in. It stands among the best work he’s ever done (recognizing that the man is already an Oscar winner), and one’s appreciation for it is only enhanced learning how instrumental he was in crafting the sensei’s arc.
Many Academy voters are still considering their choices in advance of the Oscars ceremony scheduled in a few weeks, and those confounded by the competition in the Best Supporting Actor cateogry would do well to read the new profile about Del Toro in The Hollywood Reporter. The feature reveals that he was a key collaborator with Paul Thomas Anderson when it came to the story implementation of Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, as he had some major issues with the script as it was first presented to him – which involved a murder and cover-up in his dojo. Explaining his problem with the logic of it, the actor recalled the notes he penned on the script:
