‘Better Call Saul’: Tony Dalton Thinks Lalo Salamanca Had an ‘Easy Life’

One of the most enigmatic Better Call Saul characters, Lalo Salamanca, is a relatively new character to the show. Lalo first appeared toward the end of season 4, singing and cooking to his heart’s content. Since then, it has become clear that Lalo is much more dangerous than his charming demeanor makes him seem. Thanks to his position in the cartel, Lalo is extremely wealthy, and Tony Dalton thinks his character has lived a pretty easy life.

Tony Dalton plays Lalo Salamanca in ‘Better Call Saul’

When Tony Dalton first landed the role of Lalo Salamanca in Better Call Saul, he wasn’t aware of just how important the character would become. “To begin with, I was offered just those last episodes in Season 4 in a supporting role. I realized it was that Lalo from Breaking Bad, so I figured I’d have a couple of episodes to set up the ‘It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio’ scene,” the actor told The Los Angeles Times. “Then I started reading it and saw this guy is going to stay here and create some havoc.”

Getting cast in Better Call Saul proved to be a turning point for introducing Dalton to American audiences. “I have this thing that’s sort of chased me around,” he said in a 2020 interview with The New York Times. “‘Well, you don’t look that Mexican, you don’t sound Mexican, but you are Mexican. So, do we give you a Mexican part or do we give you an American part?’ It’s been the bane of my existence as an actor. It finally worked in my favor.”

Tony Dalton believes Lalo had an easy life

Unlike his own experiences, Dalton imagines that his Better Call Saul character Lalo Salamanca grew up in the lap of luxury. “I think his story is completely different. I don’t know for sure because the writers don’t tell me anything, but I thought, ‘Maybe this guy speaks English perfectly, maybe he grew up in the States and went to school here,’ which a lot of people do if their parents are wealthy. So I figured he had an easy life,” Dalton told The LA Times.

“Lalo is a little prince. He had it all handed to him. It’s just that they went too far with him and brought out the psycho under the nice rich guy,” Dalton continued. “I sure as hell did not have it easy. I picked this career and didn’t know what else to do. I’d been waiting tables and that was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It’s not like at 25 I could just go into engineering.”

While Dalton now certainly has his name out there, he still deals with typecasting on a regular basis. “Even now, people don’t want to offer me an American part because they think I’m not American — which I am, by the way — and then I get offered the Mexican drug guy. I got offered a Mexican drug lord part for an American show the other day. It takes time to break out of a cliche,” he told the LA Times.

Will Lalo die in ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6?

As Better Call Saul approaches its final episodes, fans are dying to uncover Lalo Salamana’s fate. Lalo is one of the few surviving characters who doesn’t appear in Breaking Bad. When the series left off with episode 7, Lalo was standing in Jimmy and Kim’s living room, having just killed Howard Hamlin.

Many fans are speculating that Lalo won’t make it out of the final season alive. Will Gus get the better of him, or will Lalo finally have his revenge?

Better Call Saul returns with new episodes on July 11.