The incredible story of the actor who makes a living dying on screen
Danny Trejo has been shot, stabbed, crushed, eaten, and tortured...numerous times.
With Air, Zombie Hunter and "The Three-Headed Shark" are just three of the movies in which he ended up dead.If you're a Breaking Bad fan, he's the guy whose head ends up on top of a turtle.According to a study, the 76-year-old has died on screen more times than any other actor.
"That shows I've been working," he jokes.
The Hollywood villain turned real-life hero rescuing a baby in a car accident And even if you didn't know his name before reading this, there's no doubt you'll be familiar with his face from the hundreds of movies and TV shows he's appeared in.
In the movies he usually shows off his long hair tied up, shows off the tattoo he has on his chest and more than likely he carries a gun with him.
"When I was starting to get famous, a good friend of mine told me, 'Everybody can think you're a movie star, but you can't.' I don't want to be a movie star. I want to be a good actor," he says.
He jokes that when he started acting he was always given the role of "inmate number one" because of his physical appearance and attitude.
But many don't know that, before his film career got underway, he was a high-profile prisoner.
"It's a miracle, because I wasn't supposed to live past the 1960s," he tells the BBC's Newsbeat radio show.
Trejo grew up in California, where he began using hard drugs as a teenager, and was in and out of jail several times in the 1960s, on various charges, including armed robbery.
He was a well-known inmate within the prison system, as he became a boxing champion at the famous San Quentin State Prison, the oldest in California.
In "Inmate Number 1" Trejo recalls how he watched a fellow inmate get stabbed in the back.
"He was walking around the upper courtyard, looking for the knife and coughing up blood, and everyone started laughing. What a crazy place," he says.
Danny also spent time in two other prisons, Soledad and Folsom, and admits that "traveling" back to his youth for the documentary was "painful."
"I remember being in a juvenile detention center and thinking my life was over. They put you right there. I tried to say, 'No, wait a minute. It's not over. You're just getting started,'" he says.
He decided to change his life, stop getting into trouble and stop using drugs.
He became a drug counselor and decided to use his experience to help others.
It was his work on a film set that led him to acting in the 1980s.
Since then, he has tried to "do good" because he measures success by "waking up and feeling good" instead of counting awards and recognition.
He knows that his fame influences others and hopes that his story will inspire younger fans: "It doesn't matter where you start, it's where you end."
In the documentary, Trejo is seen going to prisons to tell inmates about his own experience. He claims that he smells "fear and anxiety" every time he returns.
"I go out and dream that I'm still in prison. That wakes you up quickly and is a reminder not to get off the right track," he says.
With age, the actor has more and more work.
A couple of years ago, while he was on the set of Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous 6, someone asked him when he would retire.
"I was playing a cowboy. I don't see myself retiring anytime soon. I'm having a lot of fun," he says.
