Escobar: Paradise Lost premieres at TIFF

TIFF continues with more red carpet events.

There was a media conference today for the film ‘Escobar: Paradise Lost’. Benicio Del Toro stars as cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

The film is set in the 1980’s in Columbia. As Escobar, Del Toro bears a striking resemblance. A perfectly natural fit so I asked Del Toro about that today.

Sean: “I’ve read that you’re the only actor alive who could play Pablo Escobar. So what elements of Pablo were important for you to get across?”

Benicio Del Toro: “Well for me, what I found interesting in Andrea’s script — and something we talked about — was that it’s a fictionalized story. But I thought that there were many things in the story, Pablo’s story, that is based on truth. And I thought it was important, even though we would ground aspects of what we know about Escobar to make it truthful. And I thought that was the thing that drew me to try and interpret this character was basically that a lot of the things that we see in the script are based on truth. And the angle, the angle. Maybe Pablo the politician.”