Benicio del Toro has opened up about a recent encounter with Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents.
The iconic actor, known for roles in Guardians of the Galaxy and The Usual Suspects, explained that he was detained while boarding a flight from Boston to Los Angeles for the wildest reason—the script he had stored in his carry-on.
During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on June 4, he told Seth Meyers about the incident, explaining that he had a large-print script for The Phoenician Scheme that had TSA agents on edge and for a good reason.
He explained, “The opening scene is ‘Interior Airplane: Bomb.” But that’s not even the worst of it.
“The second scene is ‘Interior Cockpit: Eject the Pilot’ and the third scene is ‘Crash,'” del Toro continued.
So when TSA agents saw the script for the Wes Anderson film, they were justifiably concerned about who del Toro was and what he was planning.
Despite being a Hollywood legend, del Toro’s explanation that it was a film script didn’t speed up the investigation and get him through security. Instead, he was swarmed by agents, who clearly didn’t recognize him from dozens of movie roles spanning a nearly 40-year career.
“Five TSA guys come over and they hover around the script, and they’re looking at it and looking at it,” del Toro recalled. ” And then finally the supervisor showed up and he walked in and he looked at me, and I think he recognized me maybe from Sicario or Traffic, and he just sat there and looked at it, and they let me go.”
Despite the delay, del Toro isn’t upset about being questioned. Instead, he gave the TSA agent a “thumbs up” for catching the questionable airport scenes in the script.
Meyers seemed to agree, saying, “You gotta give that guy credit because let’s say he let you go and something terrible happened. He told me it was a movie! . . . And you believed him?!”
“It was a checklist!” del Toro said of the film’s opening scenes.
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