Danny Trejo spoke to a full Campbell Hall at UC Santa Barbara last week about how his life experiences of drug abuse and imprisonment led to his life of generosity and activism.

Trejo began with a favorite quote of his that would reflect the theme of the talk as a whole.

“Everything good that has happened to me has come as a direct result of helping someone else,” he said.

Trejo recounted many experiences in his life in which a good deed on his part was repaid at some later point.

Some were small — returning a dropped $20 bill resulted in a $600 winning lottery ticket — and some were significant. Encouraging his friend Mario Castillo to become sober earlier in life resulted in Castillo saving Trejo’s son’s life while Trejo was away filming a movie. He used these stories to encourage the audience to follow suit.

His generosity played out in real time during a Q&A with the audience following his talk.

An audience member stepped up to the microphone describing himself as six years sober and asked Trejo for advice for his 18-year-old son studying film and trying to break into the industry. Trejo promptly responded by telling Castillo, who is also an actor, to give the man his phone number, likely for a later correspondence.

Trejo also received a phone call from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass 20 minutes into the event to debrief on a talk he did earlier in the day.

Drug use started early for Trejo. He said he began smoking marijuana at the age of 8 and first tried heroin at the age of 12. He was exposed to the drugs by his uncle, Gilbert Trejo, whom he looked up to dearly.

“Uncle Gilbert was my hero. Too bad he was a drug addict and an armed robber,” Trejo said.

Trejo engaged with drugs, fights and armed robbery in his teenage years. He shared with the audience that he attended five different high schools in the 10th grade.

He spent most of the 1960s in prison and was released on Aug. 23, 1969. Trejo said that he went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that night and worked to turn his life around from then on.

He later became a film extra to make money and ended up on the set of “Runaway Train” (1985). The film’s screenplay was being written by Edward Bunker, a former prison mate of Trejo’s at San Quentin State Prison. Bunker recognized Trejo and helped him land a small acting role in the film which would propel his acting career.

In addition to his extensive filmography of playing the bad guy, Trejo has dedicated his life to activism for recovering addicts and Latinx representation in film.

He has written a book about his life, “Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption and Hollywood,” and copies were sold at the venue and available for signing by Trejo after his talk.