3 days ago
Benicio del Toro was stopped on flight due to The Phoenician Scheme script
Benicio del Toro was almost prevented from boarding a flight due to the script from his latest movie The Phoenician Scheme.
The Usual Suspects star plays the lead in Wes Anderson's latest movie - whose plot, which features his character surviving an aeroplane bombing.
Reading his lines, however, almost got Benicio detained by agents from America's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after they took the script far too literally.
"I had the script in my carryon, I'm in Boston and I'm flying to LA," he said on Late Night with Seth Meyers. "And for some reason, I had my computer in there, and I didn't take it out, so the TSA people, they just said, 'Hey, we need to check your bag.' 'Sure.' He opens the bag, he looks into it-and I take my scripts and I make the headings bigger, so I can get to it really quick.
"The opening scene is 'Interior Airplane: Bomb'. The second scene is 'Interior Cockpit: Eject the Pilot' and the third scene is 'Crash.' The guy, he's reading it. I go, 'It's a film script.' And he looks at me and goes, (holding up his finger), and he closes the thing and walks out. Five TSA guys come over and they hover around the script, and they're looking at it and looking at it."
However, before the actor was detained for a ficticious bomb plot, an agent recognised him and waved him through.
"Finally, the supervisor showed up and he walked in and he looked at me, and I think he recognised me, maybe from (Benicio's past films) Sicario or Traffic, and he just sat there and looked at it and they let me go," the star continued.
He said there are no hard feelings towards his interrogators, adding: "I give that guy a thumbs up because he was paying attention."
