HOLLYWOOD -- If there's one thing that Benicio Del Toro loathes, it's all the game-playing in Hollywood.

"I just want to act but in this city it's all about image and managers and publicity,'' he said, in a recent interview. "Somebody is always trying to change something about you. When I first started acting, they wanted to change my name because it sounded too Puerto Rican. They wanted to call me Benny Dell or Benny Delaware or something.

"I am Puerto Rican. The can't change that by changing my name. I told them they'd have to live with my ethnicity or just not use me."

That was not the case. In the space of four years, Del Toro has starred in Basquiat, The Usual Suspects, The Fan, Excess Baggage, several TV movies and, starting today, Terry Gilliam's psychedelic road movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Del Toro plays the drug-crazed lawyer Dr. Gonzo to Johnny Depp's renegade sportswriter Raoul Duke. He gained almost 50 pounds to play Gonzo, "because that's what the guy looked like in real life. He was Samoan. He was like this big Buddha."

Fear and Loathing is based on Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 account of his and Dr. Gonzo's drug-addled road trip to Las Vegas.

"They were loners and they were losers. They were so angry about the failure of the American public to respond to Vietnam and they were filled with fear of what the future might hold so they drowned their disappointment in drugs and alcohol."

Depp researched his role by actually meeting Thompson and travelling with the writer on a book tour last year.

Del Toro couldn't meet with his alter ego.

"Dr. Gonzo disappeared in 1974. Some people said he was murdered. I met with his son who was born in 1960."

Like Gonzo, Del Toro always felt like an outsider in his adopted country and in his own skin.

"I had a privileged upbringing but I never felt comfortable in that lifestyle. I wanted to be an artist. I started out painting in high school.

"I was 19 before I even started acting. I was convinced I was too old to start studying."

Still he dropped out of the University of San Diego to study with renowned New York acting coach Stella Adler.

"What I learned is that acting must consume you. When I act, everything else ceases to exist. It's not the same for every actor but it is also how Johnny Depp works.

"His commitment to a role is relentless. He makes you want to work even harder."

Gilliam says Del Toro is "an exciting actor. He's obsessed with his work. He draws the camera like a magnet because he keeps coming up with things that are dark, brooding, dangerous and sexy.

"As a director you don't ask him where it comes from. You just capture it."

Del Toro is still a drifter.

He doesn't own a home because he's worried that such a financial commitment might force him to take mediocre roles just to pay the mortgage.

"I've told my agent I don't want to work on anything right away. I've lost most of the weight I gained but I haven't exactly got Gonzo completely out of my system."

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