Tony Dalton
Tony Dalton is an actor, born 1975.
Almost two decades of Mexican television came before the American breakout, and that is the whole explanation for Lalo Salamanca. Tony Dalton was born in Laredo, Texas in 1975 to an American mother and a Mexican father, and built his career on the other side of the border: telenovelas first, Mi Destino Eres Tú and Clase 406, then Rebelde, which put him in front of an enormous teenage audience as Gastón Diestro. Film followed, mostly Mexican and mostly serious, including El Infierno, The Precocious and Brief Life of Sabina Rivas and The Perfect Dictatorship.
What Better Call Saul found in him was charm used as a delivery system for threat. Lalo Salamanca smiles more than anyone else in that show, asks friendly questions, compliments the cooking, and the friendliness never drops even when it should, which is the frightening part. Very few actors can hold a scene at that pitch without tipping into camp. He arrives late in the series and reorders it anyway.
Marvel has used him twice, as Jack Duquesne in Hawkeye and again in Daredevil: Born Again, hiring a lighter version of the same trick: a man whose manners are impossible to read. The Mexican and Spanish-language work has continued alongside it, in Night Shift, The Dead Girls and Trap House, and he took Ray Vega in Sugar in between. The through line is that he is almost never the person the audience is meant to trust, and never the person they want off screen.
Movies (8)
TV (9)
Where to start with Tony Dalton
Better Call Saul first, and there is no substitute. He arrives late in that series, so you are committing to a long approach, but the payoff is the best-written material anyone has given him and the clearest demonstration of what he does with it.
For a shorter version, Hawkeye uses the same charm at a faster tempo and Daredevil: Born Again carries it forward. The pre-Saul career is worth real attention: El Infierno is the serious one from the Mexican film years, and Rebelde is the telenovela that made him a household face across Latin America. Sugar and The Dead Girls are for people who liked him enough to keep going. Skip Colombiana unless you are completing the set, since the credit there is a walk-on.
Better Call Saul and Marvel
Lalo Salamanca arrives in season four and immediately becomes the most dangerous thing in a show that already had Gus Fring. Marvel took him straight afterwards for Swordsman, and the recent American work has all followed from those two.
The Mexican work
Twenty years in Mexican television and film before anyone in the United States noticed. El Infierno, which he co-wrote, is a savage black comedy about the drug war and swept the Mexican awards. The telenovelas are where he learned the trade.