For his breakthrough film, "The Usual Suspects", Benicio Del Toro purposely recited his lines so that no one could understand what he was saying. That mumbled performance got Del Toro an Independent Spirit Award. He got another for his turn in Julian Schnabel's much-underrated "Basquiat". Now he is encased in about 40 pounds of extra flab for the screen adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", in which he stars opposite Johnny Depp. It's the kind of outsider netherworld that Del Toro usually inhabits. So what's he doing this month, starring in an Alicia Silverstone movie?

After doing so many little independent movies, why did you take this part in "Excess Baggage", a big-budget Hollywood movie?

I was quite broke, man. Really. I did "Basquiat" and "The Usual Suspects", I worked for nothing. I had $3,000 when I went to New York, and when I came back I didn't have anything.

Alicia Silverstone produced "Excess Baggage". Have you ever acted with your boss before?

No.

Is that strange?

No...[pauses] yes [pauses]...not really. Alicia understands acting, she understands. It was easier to communicate with her. Sometimes producers, sometimes even directors, don't get it. They don' t understand how you build a performance. They want to see everything that first day. You try to tell them, "I have a lot of scenes. Let me do this here and that there. And then work from there." Alicia knew all that. I'd work with her any time, and I can't say that about everybody I've worked with.

What part are you playing in "Fear and Loathing"?

Dr. Gonzo. Johnny Depp is playing the Duke. He's basically Hunter Thompson.

Dr. Gonzo is a lawyer, and you come from a family of lawyers.

Yeah. But I don't get to play a lawyer, I play a hoodlum in the film, and they go to Las Vegas and they just run amok and take a lot of drugs. Anyway, that's what I think. But Hunter likes to think about it as hope and how the 1960's didn't take us to the promised land.

You grew up in Puerto Rico but spent some of your adolescence in Pennsylvania farm country. Did you ever feel out of place there?

I liked it in some ways, but what I really wanted to do was be a surfer. My brother was going to UCLA. I wanted to surf.

What about carrying a movie, being a leading man? You haven't done that yet.

I think I'm ready for big roles, or I will be pretty soon. It depends on what you mean by leading man. If you just have to look good, I can look good. I can work out, lose weight, cut my hair, lay out in the sun.

Have you learned anything about your craft from working with another actor?

Robert De Niro in "The Fan". I liked the discipline, the stillness of him. He comes to work. It's just about the work for him.

He's known for insisting on lots of takes.

Yes, but it's not as thought he likes lots of takes for his self-indulgence. He's got a strategy: He may have the first part of the scene down through the first few takes, and then he's working on the second part. Someting's missing in the second part. So through those takes he's working to make it good. It was really nice to see someone who's done such great work and still trying to do something. He could have walked in and walked out. But he's still trying.

Has any actor ever given you a great piece of advice?

Chris Walken gave me the best advice. He said, "If you're in a scene and you don't know what do do, don't do anything." That's a good piece of advice.

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