Benicio del Toro (born February 19, 1967), born Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sanchez, is an Oscar winning actor. He was born in San German, Puerto Rico and grew up in Santurce, a district of San Juan, Puerto Rico and spent his teens and attended high school in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh. His parents, Gustavo Adolfo del Toro Bermudez and Fausta Sanchez Rivera, were both lawyers. He has an older brother, also named Gustavo, who is a pediatric oncologist working in Manhattan.

Benicio attended Academia del Perpetuo Socorro (The Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help), a Catholic school in Miramar, Puerto Rico. When he was nine years old, his mother died of hepatitis. At age 13, his father moved his family to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, where Benicio was enrolled in Mercersburg Academy, a boarding school