According to Variety, Benicio Del Toro is director J.J. Abrams’ top choice to play his next Star Trek villain, whoever that might be. Even Del Toro apparently doesn’t know, as Abrams’ paranoid secrecy has reportedly led to him meeting with the actor about taking on the role but never explaining fully who it is—which must have been sort of daunting for Del Toro. After all, that’s how you find yourself in a giant space sombrero playing The Andromeda Bandito, the rootinest, tootinest outlaw this side of the universe. Still, assuming J.J. Abrams isn’t crazy, Del Toro’s role probably won’t be that. Indeed, some have already speculated that Del Toro is being courted to play Khan, bringing the equally rich, Corinthian leather of his own Latin lungs to the role made famous by Ricardo Montalban. But all we really know that it looks as though the next Star Trek film will likely once again follow the traditional “villain” model, rather than the suggestion previously made by screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman that the adversary could be “the unknown and nature itself.” Unless Del Toro is playing all of nature, in which case he probably needs to start putting on a lot of weight.
Join the discussion...