Che Guevara would have rolled over in his grave if he’d known that his revolutionary life would be branded.

‘Che is the icon’s icon,’ said director Steven Soderbergh at the Sutton Place Hotel press conference held Wednesday for the TIFF bow of Che, his lengthy two-part portrait of the radical leader played by Oscar-winning thesp Benicio del Toro (Traffic).

‘There’s 100 percent brand identity; there isn’t anyone who hasn’t seen that image,’ said the complex producer, director and cinematographer of the commercially successful Oceans 11 through 13 franchise, and executive producer on more political fare such as Syriana.

Ironically, the film’s poster was ‘not ready’ in time for Che‘s red-carpet gala, partly because the approvals process regarding Guevara’s iconic image ‘is more complicated than you think,’ said Soderbergh.

The director admittedly speaks ‘very little’ Spanish, and quipped: ‘I had a great time not knowing what the actors were saying.’ He likened communication with the Spanish-speaking actors to interpreting one’s pets: ‘If your pet barks or meows the wrong way, you feel it.’

Soderbergh said he felt ‘obliged’ to make the film because producer Laura Bickford and del Toro — who spent seven years researching the story and script — brought it to him.

Del Toro said he felt like a ‘deer in the headlights’ while preparing for Che, but got into it by ‘meeting those people’ who actually fought Che’s fight, and by ‘reading what he wrote — you put all that together and then you throw it all away.’

He said the acting experience was more ‘act than react — defense more than offence,’ and that he ultimately had to ‘throw everything away, trust, and add in yourself. It’s kind of like you pack your bags and then don’t worry if you lose them.’

The Puerto Rican star arrived at the press conference with his trademark trainwreck image intact, yet he was waxing poetic.

‘I’ve always been a fan of underdogs,’ del Toro explained. ‘I’ve always liked [Ernest Hemingway’s] The Old Man and the Sea — he goes after the fish, gets the fish…Che had elements of that.’

On a more factual note, Soderbergh added that ‘every scene could be sourced’ in reality. ‘We didn’t have to make anything up.’

The film bowed at Cannes, where its length was criticized, although Soderbergh says the version showing at TIFF (12 minutes shorter than the Cannes cut) is the ‘final version.’

On a humorous note, when a South American journalist queried as to whether Guevara’s compatriot Fidel Castro has seen any version, Soderbergh said: ‘I’ve heard when Fidel watches movies, he’ll stop the movie and have a discussion, then start the movie again and that goes on for several hours. I wonder how long it would take him to watch this.’