Actor and entrepreneur Danny Trejo stopped by The Beat on 1 on Friday morning to talk about his acting career and blossoming restaurant career. 

Trejo, who starred in films like From Dusk Till Dawn, Heat and Spy Kids, attributes his success to helping other people. 

"I honestly believe that is the only way somebody can survive after they've been locked up," Trejo said. "Being locked up makes you the most selfish person in the world, if you can get out of that and start saying, 'What can I do for you?' Your life gets better." 

Trejo, who was in and out of jail for 11 years, got his first acting job on Runaway Train.

"This guy said, 'You want to be in this movie?' and I said 'What do I have to do?' And he said, 'Can you act like a convict?' And I said, 'I can give it a shot.'" he said.

Along with acting, Trejo recently branched out and opened Trejo's Tacos and Trejo's Coffee and Donuts after starting his restaurant career with his non-traditional Mexican cuisine food truck Trejo's Truck. 

"It was a lifelong dream of my mom's," Trejo said. "But in the 50s... if your wife worked, the other men actually teased you."

He said the secret to a good restaurant, "Is good food."

Trejo has also been keeping an eye on the looming Los Angeles Unified School District strike.

"Our prison guards make more than our teachers and have better benefits," Trejo said. "That's backwards. Our teachers take care of our kids for eight hours a day, I hope our new governor can get into here and do something."