For many Latino viewers, Danny Trejo's casting in Pawn Shop landed as more than another movie role. The Mexican American actor has spent decades playing characters that made him a familiar face in Hollywood, and the new film places him inside a story about an ICE officer, a detained immigrant, and a crowd accused of trying to free him. When the film was identified as a project from Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire, some fans questioned what Trejo's participation said about his politics.
His son, Gilbert Trejo, says the story behind the casting is different from what the backlash assumes.
In an Instagram Story, Gilbert said his father signed on to play a "hardworking Mexican shop owner who just wants peace." The agent's pitch, he said, was "a complicated story about a complicated time, where everyone looks bad except you." Gilbert said the cast and family learned Shapiro was involved about two weeks into filming. His 82-year-old father, Gilbert added, had "never heard of Ben Shapiro."
While the production has not publicly confirmed his account of when the cast learned about Shapiro's involvement, Danny Trejo's son also said his father's contract prevents him from criticizing Shapiro or the film, or leaving without risking a breach-of-contract lawsuit.
"He's handcuffed to this stupid project," Gilbert wrote, arguing that people had turned against his father without knowing the circumstances.
Trejo addressed the controversy himself days earlier, in a statement posted to social media. "I am a proud Mexican who has always been and will always be a supporter of my community," he wrote. "I am also obviously pro-immigrant. I am not pro-ICE." He added: "I am an actor. My job is to tell a story."
But the film's premise is political whether or not an actor endorses it. Pawn Shop follows an ICE officer pursued by a mob after his partner is killed and he tries to complete an arrest. The film's logline casts the crowd as a threat and frames the conflict as a choice between "the rule of law" and chaos. Trejo is reportedly playing the Mexican shop owner caught in the siege.
That framing helps explain why the casting struck a nerve. Latino audiences have reason to scrutinize stories about immigration enforcement and who gets portrayed as dangerous, sympathetic or caught in the middle. Trejo's statement separates his own views from ICE's; Gilbert's account suggests his father may not have understood the production's political associations when he accepted the role. Neither resolves what the finished film will say, or whether its depiction will match the initial pitch.
The movie has drawn criticism beyond the casting. During filming in Livingston, Montana, residents objected to road closures, limited notice and blocked access to a local food pantry. A scene involving a car and law-enforcement officers also drew comparisons to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent. The city temporarily revoked the production permit before reinstating it with new conditions.
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