Danny Trejo has been a working actor for nearly 40 years now and in that time, he’s amassed 398 acting credits according to IMDb. It’s actually a pretty entertaining game to go through his credits to see the names of the characters he’s played, too. Sharkey, Spider, Hard Hat, Shotgun, Johnny Sixtoes and Jumpy are among the highlights. Hell, director Michael Mann couldn’t even come up with a cool enough name for him in Heat so his name was just Trejo. Seriously.
He’s had a pretty incredible career considering he was in prison before becoming an actor and with a face like that, he’ll have work for life. As we all know, though, trends begin to develop for actors with long and fruitful careers. Like, the number of times Keanu Reeves has played a character named John. Seriously, it’s mind-blowing. Or how about the fact that Mena Suvari (remember her?) has acted in seven different projects with “American” in the title. There’s a random fact for you.
But for Trejo, his trend or distinction is that he’s officially died on screen more times than any other actor. A new infographic from Buzz Bingo has ranked the Top 10 Actors By Total Number of On-Screen Deaths and Trejo takes the top spot with 65. The late Christopher Lee is close behind with 60, while other names in the top 10 include Lance Henriksen with 51, Dennis Hopper (41), Tom Sizemore (36) and Eric Roberts (35).
Tom Cruise could have probably made the top 10 if Edge of Tomorrow was a little longer. And if they ever make that sequel, he’ll certainly rise in the rankings. It’s also hard to believe Samuel L. Jackson didn’t make the cut and perhaps more shocking is that Sean Bean isn’t even in the top 10.
In any case, Danny Trejo holds the championship belt for now, but with the actor coming to the end of his career as he’s currently 75, it’ll be interesting to see who passes him over the next few years.
