Machete (character)

Isador Cortez
Machete as featured in the fake trailer from Grindhouse.
First appearance	Spy Kids (2001)
Last appearance	Machete Kills (2013)
Created by	Robert Rodriguez
Portrayed by	Danny Trejo
Information
Nickname(s)	Machete
Aliases	Machete Cortez
Gender	Male
Occupation	Former police officer Hired assassin Spy gadget inventor
Family	Gregorio Cortez (younger brother) Padre Benicio Del Toro (brother) Marissa Cortez-Wilson (sister) Wife (unnamed deceased) Daughter (unnamed deceased)
Relatives	Carmen Cortez (niece) Juni Cortez (nephew) Ingrid Avellan Cortez (sister-in-law)
Nationality	Mexican

Isador Cortez, also known as Machete, is a fictional character in the four Spy Kids films, the Grindhouse fake trailer, and the Machete and Machete Kills films. The character is played by Danny Trejo.

According to Machete director Robert Rodriguez, the character Machete was always intended for Danny Trejo: "When I met Danny, I said, 'This guy should be like the Mexican Jean-Claude Van Damme or Charles Bronson, putting out a movie every year and his name should be Machete.'" Rodriguez also said, in an interview, that he "wrote [Trejo] this idea of a federale from Mexico who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the U.S. I had heard sometimes FBI or DEA have a really tough job that they don't want to get their own agents killed on, they'll hire an agent from Mexico to come do the job for $25,000. I thought, 'That's Machete. He would come and do a really dangerous job for a lot of money to him but for everyone else over here it's peanuts.' But I never got around to making it."

Isador Cortez is a former Mexican Federal. He has his own shop that sells spy gadgets. His weapon of choice is the machete, although he can handle firearms perfectly fine. Cortez is fluent in both Spanish and English. On his chest is a tattoo depicting a woman. Machete is related by blood to Juni Cortez and Carmen Cortez, being their uncle. Trejo has described Machete as a "badass", and said that his mother had started calling him "Machete".

In Spy Kids, Machete is first seen in a flashback, at his brother Gregorio's wedding. When Gregorio and Gregorio's wife Ingrid get captured by Fegan Floop, Carmen and Juni, Gregorio's children, visit their "Uncle Machete", hoping he will help them to save their parents. Machete refuses to go after Gregorio, as they are estranged, but allows his niece and nephew to stay with him, and shows them a one-passenger jet that could get them to Floop's castle. Carmen and Juni take the jet, some of his gadgets, and the map to the castle at night. Machete appears again near the end of the film, when he decides to help the Cortezes against an army of robotic children. When asked why he came back, Machete claimed it's the same reason he left. Gregorio no longer remembers the reason and neither does Machete. Machete then cries in his brother's arms.