BEVERLY HILLS -- Maybe Alicia Silverstone is going a bit overboard when she describes Benicio Del Toro as ''the Brando of his generation.'' Her co-star in Excess Baggage modestly thinks that title is a bit much.

''Well, we both mumble, but, hey, Brando's Brando, right? There can be only one Brando.''

Del Toro, 29, is a shy and intense young actor who has been making larger and larger splashes in the movies, from Fearless to The Usual Suspects, Basquiat and The Funeral. But the ''next big thing'' buzz hasn't gone to his head. Not yet, anyway.

''I try not to listen to that hype. A side of me would love to say, 'Noo noooooo. It's all true. I am the next big thing.' But I can't bite into that because it can ruin you.

''When I get home, I've still got to learn those lines.''

Del Toro respects acting as a craft. And he's not one to allow sex appeal, box-office appeal or acting instincts to get in the way of constructing a performance.

''My acting teacher, Arthur Mendoza, always said, 'Don't rely on your talent.' I don't.''

Del Toro plays Vincent, a mumbling, introverted car thief who snatches a car that has the wealthy and bratty Emily (Silverstone) in the trunk. He's stuck with an obnoxious heiress who wants to pull a trick so that she can win her father's love.

''I knew that this guy was a good guy who was trapped,'' Del Toro said. ''He's whiny, which I decided to cling to. He's a little slow, but not stupid. He's a survivor. He's slow the same way an alligator is slow, pretending to be distracted.''

Vincent is so good-hearted that he can't force himself to toss Emily out of the car.

''Now me, I would've dumped her and never looked back,'' Del Toro said. ''End of movie.''

Del Toro is tall (6 feet 2 inches), dark and handsome. His father is Puerto Rican and his mother is half-Italian and half-Puerto Rican, thus his Italian-Spanish name. His mixed lineage has made him equally at home playing Italians (The Funeral) and Hispanics (Fearless, The Fan, Christopher Columbus, the Discovery). He is scheduled to play the Latin revolutionary Che Guevara at some point soon, and one can easily see the resemblance.

Silverstone, who also served as producer of Excess Baggage, decided the first time they met that she had to have him as a co-star.

''He's so smart, and the second I met him I knew there was no point in doing the film if he wasn't going to do it with me,'' she said.

''The studio wanted someone prettier, sexier,'' Del Toro said with a grin. ''She held out for me. I like that.''

A lot of people have been holding out for Del Toro of late. He has picked up Independent Spirit acting awards for The Usual Suspects and Basquiat. He has just started shooting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a film based on Hunter S. Thompson's notorious book about the 1960s. Del Toro is certainly a long way from his screen debut, as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee-wee.

Fear and Loathing co-stars Johnny Depp, and is being directed by the visionary Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Fisher King).

''Terry Gilliam is great at creating worlds,'' Del Toro said. ''He's going to create a world that is full of fear and loathing, the 1960s, the end of an era. That should be very interesting.

''That was an era that had a lot to do with what this country stands for. We peaked, as a nation, then. That's what the book was about, two dreamers who are forced to confront reality, rather than get to the promised land. They are forced to walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . and they're quite (ticked) off about that.''

Del Toro likes to improvise, but he's not happy with movies that start with improvisation, and no script.

''I start screaming during the night if I don't have a script I can understand and play.''

There was a lot of that in Excess Baggage. But Del Toro said that the panic of not having a set script can lead to brilliant things. For instance, the last scene of the movie involves his deftly slipping into a car trunk.

''That was improvised. We were running out of time. We didn't have an ending, sat there, and we came up with that. Had to pull the trunk lid down with my foot. I had no idea I could do that.''

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