Of course, it’s that authenticity that’s attracted casting directors since the start of Trejo’s career in the mid-80s. His early small roles eventually led to Trejo’s association with Robert Rodriquez, who coincidentally turned out to be his second cousin as well as the filmmaker who would finally give him his first starring role. Starting with “From Dusk ‘Till Dawn” through the “Spy Kids” trilogy, it was a long path that first led to the funniest fake trailer in “Grindhouse” and then the ultra-violent yet entirely tongue-in-cheek Mexploitation action-fest, “Machete,” now available on Blu-ray and DVD. In his mid-60s, Danny Trejo is now a movie star.

A Los Angeles native with an astonishing 201 roles to his credit, the actor grew up within a half-hour’s drive of the film studios in Burbank, but his tough neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley might as well have been in Tierra del Fuego. He was a heroin addict by age 12 and, way-too-shortly thereafter, an armed robber on a supersonic path to jail or the grave. Fortunately, as depicted in the biographical documentary “Champion” (available via streaming video on Netflix), jail got Trejo first. He eventually found his way to a 12 step program that allowed him to turn his life around to the poing where he could stop being a hard case and, with the benefit of a fortuitous encounter with the late ex-con author and “Reservoir Dogs” actor, Eddie Bunker, start playing them instead.

A voluble gentlemen, Trejo enjoys talking to the press and is not a difficult interview by any means. The roundtable nevertheless started with a slightly awkward moment of silence when a writer who had been patched in via telephone for some reason didn’t come up with the first question and was never heard from again.

Eventually I chimed in with a query, perhaps a bit serious for an opener. I mentioned “Champion” and how, in the film, Trejo discusses how criminals, both inside and outside of prison, are forced to present their natural fear as anger in order to survive in a brutal environment. I wondered if Trejo considered that world of false but convincing bravado to be his first acting class.

“You have to learn how to act. If you’re standing out in the yard in San Quentin and something’s going to come down, you’re scared to death and you can’t show it. Inside, you’re dying, but outside you’re [saying] ‘Bring it!’ I think that was the first way of trying to cover up a feeling that is inside. [Anger is fear] turned outward. That’s automatic. Some people don’t even play with fear, they just go straight to rage and that’s the best weapon anybody can have if you’re under attack.”

I mentioned that, for a tough guy performer, it’s notable how many essentially comic roles he’s taken on. I wonder if he felt more comfortable with those. I mentioned an ex-criminal I’ve met who said he couldn’t even sit through an episode of “The Sopranos” because it hit too close to his past. His answer helped explain why Trejo’s been such an incredibly busy actor.

“I’ll do whatever you’ve got. Bring me what you’ve got. I did a TV series for a while called ‘Kingpin,’ [a hugely watchable show created by the late David Mills of “The Corner,” “The Wire” and “Treme”] and it was just super-violent. I just thought it was funny. I take this as a job, that’s all. Acting is a job the same as a house painter, a plumber or electrician. Same thing. I show up for work, ‘What you got?,’ and then I’ll do what you got. Some of it’s really easy because I’ve done it. It makes it really simple.”

Regarding Trejo’s long association with Robert Rodriguez, another writer asked if things have gotten to the point where he’d pretty much do anything Rodriguez suggested.

“Absolutely. He’s got a standing ‘Yes’ at the office. He calls and the first thing is ‘Yes, we’ll do it. What now?'” Trejo said with a chuckle.

But with the enormous number of movies and television shows that Trejo will do in a year, does he ever really have time to catch his breath and enjoy his success?

“I love what I’m doing. I love doing this. To me, being on a movie set is fun. It’s not even work. When I have to act, that’s the work. I remember somebody asking me, ‘When do you go on vacation?’ I was in Capetown, South Africa [working on a film]. I mean, people work all their lives to get here. In the work there’s fun. I was in Hawaii for three months doing a [1998] movie called ‘Six Days, Seven Nights’ with Harrison Ford and Anne Heche. I was there three months, I probably worked 15 days. I got tired of scuba diving [and] snorkeling. To me, my life’s a vacation. It’s something that I love doing.”

The next question prompted Trejo to tell the story of how a visit to the apparently cocaine-laden set of the 1985 action-thriller, “Runaway Train,” led to the chance encounter that jump-started his film career.

“I got there completely by accident. I was a drug counselor; I was working for Western Pacific Med/Corp. One of the kids that I was working with called me and said, ‘Hey, there’s a lot of blow down here on my job. Can you come and hang out with me for support?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I went down at 11:00 at night to hang out with him. That’s what I do. I support people that wanna stay clean and wanna stay sober.”

“I went down there and it was funny because I walked on to a movie set. He was a P.A. [production assistant]. I got overwhelmed because everybody was dressed like convicts and they’re all trying to be hard. It was funny. This guy came up to me and said, ‘Hey, you wanna be in this movie?’ I said, ‘What do I gotta do?’ He said, ‘You wanna be an extra?’ I said, ‘Extra what?’ He said, ‘Can you act like a convict?’ It was funny because I’d been in every penitentiary in the state of California. I said, ‘I’ll give it a shot.'”

“They gave me a blue shirt, so I took off mine and I had that big tattoo [of a woman wearing a sombrero] on my chest. The minute I took off my shirt this guy came over to me and said, ‘You’re Danny Trejo.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I’m Eddie Bunker.’ I said, ‘I know you, there was a guy Eddie Bunker that I was in prison with.’ He said he was a writer. I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I wrote the screenplay.’ He said, ‘You want a job?’ I said, ‘I got one, they’re gonna give me 50 bucks for acting like a convict. He said, ‘No, no. We need someone to train one of the actors how to box.’ He knew that I boxed. I said, ‘What’s it pay?’ He said ‘$320 a day.’ And I said, ‘How bad you want this guy beat up?'”

Trejo got some laughs with that, but the story wasn’t over.

“He said, ‘No, no. You gotta be careful. Actors are a little high strung and he might sock you.’ I said, ‘Eddie, for $320 a day, give him a stick.’ I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t making $320 a week. I started training Eric Roberts how to box for the movie. Andrey Konchalovskiy, the director, saw that Eric would do whatever I told him to do. So, he hired me. The rest is history. I went from movie to movie to movie. The first five years of my career I was always ‘Inmate #1’ or ‘Bad Guy with Tattoos.’ The first time I got a name was in ‘Death Wish 4.’ I was Art Sanella and I played with Charles Bronson. I thought I’d made it. I said, ‘Whoa, that’s it. Look, my name’s on the trailer.’ I couldn’t believe it. It just kept on and kept on, going from movie to movie. My agent, Gloria, she keeps me working.”

“They know that the worst time for me is when I’m not working, though when I’m not working I got three vintage cars that I love working on. So. I’ll do that, but I can only do that so long and then I start calling. ‘Hurry up, get Danny a job!'” Trejo said in a mock angry voice, laughing at himself.

But is there any kind of role he won’t do?

“Depending on what it is, you know. If the bad guy is gonna get away with crime, nah, I won’t do it, it’s not real. Bad guy’s gotta die.”

That led me to note that his “Spy Kids” character is named “Machete,” actually Isador “Machete” Cortez. I asked if he thought Carmen and Juni would be shocked if they knew what their uncle was up to.

Chuckling, Trejo said, “Oh, that’s what Uncle Machete does when he’s not taking care of the kids.”

But, seriously, is the Uncle Machete of “Spy Kids” actually the same guy as the hard-living and hard-killing Machete of the 2009 movie?

“We named Uncle Machete in ‘Spy Kids’ just as an homage, or whatever you call it, to ‘Machete.’ We hadn’t done the trailer yet and we didn’t know if that movie was ever going to be made. Robert loved this character, so he named Uncle Machete, the mystery uncle, [after it]. Then, when we did the trailer, the trades came out and said, ‘This is the best thing in ‘Grindhouse.’ When we walked out of the premiere of ‘Grindhouse,’ me and Robert just looked at each other and started laughing because we knew we gotta make this movie.”

Of course, Rodriguez had written the first version of the “Machete” screenplay some years before, around the time him and Trejo were making the slightly less spoofy action flick, “Desperado,” the 1995 sequel to Rodriguez’s career-making “El Mariachi.” The movie starred Antonio Banderas, then still making the transition from being the young leading man of worldwide art house hits like Pedro Almodovar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” to an international superstar.

“It was funny. Antonio Banderas could be standing next to me, but nobody knew who he was. It was his first starring role and we were in Mexico and he’s from Spain. Everybody was asking me for autographs and taking pictures. I remember Robert saying, [in a low voice] ‘They think you’re the star of the movie?’ I said, ‘I am. Aren’t I?’ We had a blast,” Trejo said, laughing.

“That’s when [Robert Rodriguez] told me about ‘Machete.’ 16-17 years ago. About this character that he wanted to do. Badass.”

Speaking of “Machete,” I wondered if Trejo knew anything more about the failure of the State of Texas to pay a promised $1.75 million in tax rebates for shooting the film in the state, presumably because the film’s satire of anti-immigrant politicians, in the form of the villainous independent state senator played by Robert De Niro, was somehow regarded as an attack on the state by the very conservative Republican governor, Rick Perry.

“He got kind of upset. It’s funny because the [Texas Film Commission], they were on the set. Texans are known for keeping their word. They were on the set; they read the script. Nothing that was in that movie was a surprise to them. So, I couldn’t understand why they did what they did. Evidently, they’re not Texans.”

The next question segued to Trejo’s appearance on a television show you might not expect, the long-running daytime soap, “The Young and the Restless.” The questioner noted that such appearances seem like a trend for a lot of big stars, including James Franco.

“I started it. He’s a copycat,” Trejo said, a big grin on his face. “Let me tell you something. I’ve been in this business for 25 years. My mother never thought I had a job. I mean, I would come home to my mom’s house and say, ‘Mom, I worked with Robert De Niro.’ She’d say, ‘I know, mijo, but when are you going to get a job?’ Then I do two episodes of ‘The Young and the Restless,’ I come home and you’d think I won an Oscar. ‘Mijo, you made it. We saw you. You were on the novela!” Trejo chuckled.

So, did Trejo ever think he’d get to the point of being the star of a film like “Machete”? Did he enjoy being the lead, or did he prefer the perhaps lower stress level of doing a supporting role.

“I didn’t give it much thought. As long as I’m working, I’m working. For a long time, Hollywood had us fooled that a leading guy has to have a certain look. He’s gotta be, you know, purty,” said Trejo getting laughs from the room. “Not that that’s bad, but Robert Rodriguez said that that’s bullshit. I was completely content just working all the time. I remember when we did ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico.’ I would stand between Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas, they’d hang around me. I’d look around, ‘Am I having a bad day or what?’ It was ridiculous, these guys are pretty, and there’s nothing wrong with being pretty but you don’t have to be pretty to be a leading man. Rodriguez [said], ‘We’re going to make the plumber or the mechanic [the lead].’ That’s me.”

Someone else mentioned his appearance on the sitcom “Modern Family” and wondered if he was hoping to do more purely comic roles, not just tongue-in-cheek macho parts like “Machete” or his very funny appearance as a comically murderous drug dealer on “The Good Guys.”

“Give me what you got. I’ll play a tree if you want me to. You want fruit on it, pay me more money. Comedy’s fun.”

Could he see himself headlining his own long-running sitcom?

“That sounds like work to me,” Trejo said with a comical sigh. “Whatever. I love working, I love what I do. My passion is talking to kids. My passion is talking in juvenile halls, and youth authorities, and high schools. That’s my passion. The more I do in film, the more I get their attention. The minute I walk onto a campus, I have everybody’s attention. My message is to stay off drugs and alcohol. Education is the key to success in anything you want to do, and that people who help other people seem to have better lives. They’re not only listening to me, they’re hearing what I’ve got to say.”

* Regarding the decision to place the new reality series “Undercover Boss” in the plum spot following the Super Bowl, she said that it was a combination of good timing and a good series. “We’re very high on the show, but we spent a lot of time talking about what the right strategy would be,” she said. “We’ve seen five or six episodes of ‘Undercover Boss’ by now, and there is a tone and a quality to the show that we felt was a great fit after the Super Bowl. It is aspirational. It is a feel-good program.
Everybody who is sitting and watching the Super Bowl, be you 8 or 80, can stay right there and enjoy the program. I think 15 years ago, that spot was used to launch new programming. Obviously, in the last 10, 15 years it’s been used more as a platform to get greater exposure for existing shows. But we thought, ‘You know what? We have a great project, we’re very high on it, and we think we’re going to launch another big-branded reality show.'”

* Obviously, NBC’s continued fall from grace via the great failure that was “The Jay Leno Show” was a topic of conversation that everyone wanted Tassler to weigh in on. “Through it all, we have to realize that ABC, CBS and FOX…we’ve all fared, I think, very well during this experimental phase for NBC,” she said. “But if we can harken back to when there was that grand proclamation about 8 o’clock at NBC…? Remember? We all wrote about that: 8 o’clock was over at NBC. They were going to have a whole different strategy developing for 8 o’clock. And then along came 10 o’clock, and they were going to have a whole different strategy for 10 o’clock. You know, I think ultimately, there is no substitute for developing great shows, working with great talent, and getting your program on the air.”

“The unfortunate thing is that our creative community was to some degree somewhat bruised by this,” she continued. “I think that the talent as this was taking place, a lot of people were put out of work. A lot of people really saw this as having a pretty negative impact on our business. But I think right now for us, it just allowed us to get a bigger piece of the ad revenue pie at 10 o’clock, and again, what I have the most trouble with is for their company, their decision to do what they did, to sort of turn that and say that his is a reflection on the whole network business, I think is misguided. Our business is thriving right now. We are enjoying success with new hit shows, as is ABC, as is FOX. So I think at the end of the day, it was an experiment that obviously did not work, but for us, like I said, there’s no substitute for just developing and producing and launching great shows.”

There’s certainly no question that a couple of CBS earned some additional success from viewers’ indifference to “The Jay Leno Show.” As Tassler observed, “We moved ‘The Mentalist’ to 10 o’clock on Thursday night and launched ‘The Good Wife,’ so 10 o’clock has been good business for us.”

“So, Bill, did you hear CBS canceled my show again? Goddammit!”

* The same, however, cannot be said for at least one of the network’s 9 PM shows, “Three Rivers,” which Tassler confirmed has been canceled, despite liberal use of the word “hiatus” in most statements. “We’ve all known each other long enough to say when something’s on hiatus, it’s code for something else,” she said, earning a huge laugh.

She sobered the room a bit, however, with her next statement. “The reality is we are very proud of that show, and it’s not too often that you get mail that lets you know as a network that eight lives were saved as a result of the organ donation that people became aware of because of that show,” she said. “At the end of the day, knowing the fact that that show was on the air and had that kind of impact is pretty extraordinary.”

* Regarding the decision to pit “Survivor: All Stars” against the Olympics, Tassler responded, “We are so high on this season of ‘Survivor’ that we think it’s certainly going to continue to do well in its time period. I think it’s sort of a mixed bag between new shows and repeats, but our strategy is to continue putting the shows out there, letting the fans come to the shows as they see fit, and whoever is going to watch the Olympics is going to watch them anyway. They’re also different audience bases. So I think we’ll be fine.”

* When asked about Charlie Sheen’s recent arrest and domestic abuse charges, Tassler indicated that it had not resulted in any problems at the network or on the show, describing things as “business as usual.” “Right now we’re being very sensitive to the fact that this is a very personal and very private matter for Charlie,” she said. “There’s been no impact on the network right now. The show is proceeding along its regular project schedule and taped a show last night, so right now there’s been no impact. I really have to credit Chuck (Lorre); he runs a wonderful show.”

* Tassler concedes that “American Idol” remains in her mind “still the Death Star,” but that the network’s counter-programming of “NCIS” will stay the same. “‘NCIS’ does well against it,” she said, “but (‘American Idol’) is still a force to be reckoned with.”

* Fans of the network’s Canadian imports, “Flashpoint” and “The Bridge,” will be pleased to know that CBS is sitting on 18 and 13 episodes of those series, respectively. They will be less pleased, however, to learn that it’s not yet confirmed when we’ll actually see any of them. “We had a high-class problem this season: we had a terrific fall launch, we had a lot of shows that we’re working, so we had more content than we had real estate for,” she admitted. “So we’ll wait and see what happens. We’ve got both shows, and obviously, they’ll make it to air at some point, but right now, the schedule is stable and doing well. Like I said, it’s a high-class problem.”

* Despite both being the work of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, there are no current plans for the network’s new drama, “Miami Medical,” to cross over with “CSI: Miami.”

* Insofar as the future of “The Amazing Race” goes, Tassler said that it will last for as long as it continues to perform. “We had a great season this year, in particular,” she said. “Bertram (Van Munster) is a magician, and when he goes out in the field and when they’re investigating and designing new routes…I mean, they’re very, very smart about the way they select their routes and are very plugged in as far as the situations and countries around the world. They have never been a complacent production. They are always looking for new challenges. And the beauty of having a reality show like ‘Race,’ like ‘Survivor,’ like ‘Big Brother,’ these brands that continue to succeed, is because each cycle, when you go into the casting process, you really get an opportunity to almost reinvent yourself. So the combination of great casting, with Bertram finding wonderful, unique and unusual routes, I think just contributes to the longevity of the show.”

* “Let’s Make a Deal” is doing “comparatively better” than “Guiding Light” had been doing in that timeslot. “What’s really interesting is I think we’re looking at daytime through a whole new prism,” said Tassler. “We are looking at it perhaps as it once was, which was a pretty diverse daypart where you had talk, you had soap, you had game. And then as we look ahead, we are considering that, as well. ‘Price is Right’ is hitting all-time highs. It’s doing really well. ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ and ‘The Young and the Restless’ are doing well. ‘Deal’ is doing well. So for us, it is looking at it with a fresh, new perspective and saying we have an opportunity to mix things up a bit, which is what we are doing.”

“I tell ya, Billy, they just don’t get me!”

* Tassler admitted with a smile that she doesn’t yet have a date for when “CSI” might finally adjust to William Petersen’s loss and find Laurence Fishburne’s character, but she acknowledged that they’re doing better and that Fishburne himself is coming along, too. “I think you can’t deny that Fishburne is a powerful actor and a force to be reckoned with,” she said. “What has happened last season to this season, he certainly has assimilated more into the ensemble. Audiences have found that as he’s more comfortable with his team, the team is more comfortable with him. And you are really now able to build greater intimacy with the relationships. And I think, yes, we have changed his wardrobe, which does reflect, to some degree, how comfortable he is now with the team and with the ensemble. But from all of the fans and our research entertainment panel, I mean, clearly people feel that he has arrived. He’s settled. He’s part of the team, and people are now able to see him actually have more humor. And I think as you look forward to the episodes that are coming up the second half of the season on ‘CSI,’ you’re going to find more irreverence. You’re going to find those sort of more iconic stories that we’ve done in the past that just kind of turn the whole Vegas experience on its ear.”

* Both “Numb3rs” and “Medium” remain in contention for pick-up next year, the former being somewhat of a surprise, given that it seemed to be a veritable certainty that it would be its final season, but Tassler explained, “We just had to cut back on the number of episodes because we had to make way to get ‘Miami Medical’ on the air.”