Spanish superstar Antonio Banderas first burst onto the Hollywood radar in the movie Desperado, having worked for several years in his native film industry.
Since then he has cornered the market in suave, tough action heroes from movies such as Assassins, The Mask of Zorro and, more recently, the Spy Kids movies. Now he is taking his character from the Shrek franchise out on his own in Puss In Boots.
The animated film has been a hit with children all over the world, and Banderas can relate to the sense of wonder from his own experiences growing up. “I loved Peter Pan. I didn’t know about the fairytale, I just saw the movie and it had a huge impact on me," he said.
“It doesn’t mean that I have a Peter Pan complex because I grew up and have responsibilities, but I just love the adventures and the possibility of never growing up.”
Set before the Shrek movies, Puss in Boots delves into the early years of the charismatic, swashbuckling feline, and for the actor providing the voice it was a pleasure to return to the role.
“Well I adore this character,” he said. “It would be bad for me to say I have similarities with him. He is just too courageous and I try to be but it’s hard. But what I would say is that I think creative people, they try to get a lot of your personal features and so it may have something of my character and also they make references to characters that I have played in the past like Zorro, Desperado and The 13th Warrior – epic characters that I have played – so I suppose there is something there. And because I have been doing this for 10 years, more and more I can see a little bit more of myself in him every movie.”
This year Banderas has been in two very successful, but very different movies - Puss in Boots and the disturbing drama The Skin I Live In, his reunion with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, which is as far from a family caper as you can get. But this is something the 51-year-old strives for.
“This particular year was almost like a metaphor of my career in a way and having these two movies come out one behind the other. Puss is so white, shiny and fun and the other one is pitch black, it’s literally a dark movie, it’s disturbing but that is what I think an actor should accomplish. Just to have the possibility of going to those two very different universes and everything in the middle.”
Puss in Boots is out now.
