10:59am Friday 2nd July 2010
Shereen Low talks to Antonio Banderas on turning 50 and putting on weight for Shrek 4.
AFTER spending five minutes in his company, you can see why Madonna had a two-year crush on Antonio Banderas.
He may be on the cusp of turning 50, but the Spanish actor still has the charisma and looks that hooked his Evita co-star a decade ago, who made the revelation in her 1991 documentary film, In Bed With Madonna.
‘‘Yes, she says these things, but she never repeated it to me,’’ he reveals, before adding with a glimmer of wickedness in his eyes: ‘‘It could have been dangerous, depending on my mood.’’ We’re at the luxury Iberostar Grand Hotel Paraiso in Cancun, Mexico, where the Spanish actor has been holidaying with actress wife Melanie Griffith and 11-yearold daughter Stella.
‘‘They’re not with me at the moment – they like the spa and the pool,’’ he blurts out, before realising he may have inadvertently disclosed his family’s whereabouts to any listening paparazzi.
There are few airs and graces with Banderas, who is a bonafide Tinseltown A-lister after receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. ‘‘I love what I do and that’s why I do it. At the end of the day, you could be an enemy of your own success,’’ says the Malaga-born star, who rose to prominence after appearing in five movies by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. He has had a celebrated career since he moved Stateside in the early Ninties, winning roles in Desperado, The Mask Of Zorro and Philadelphia.
Following a string of box office flops, his career was revived when he voiced the cute-but-deadly Puss in Boots in the Shrek films – a role he reprises for Shrek Forever After.
‘‘Because I had been playing characters that were, in some ways, bigger than life and heroic, putting it into a tiny body of a pussy cat was fun,’’ he says, his chocolate-brown eyes twinkling.
Banderas, who now lives in Los Angeles, wasn’t expecting the part to fall in his lap.
‘‘When I got to the United States - I was 30 at the time - I didn’t speak the language at all. The fact they gave me a character for my voice only was quite surprising, but I suppose I have such a recognisable accent that they thought it was perfect,’’ he recalls.
In the fourth and, what is rumoured to be, final instalment of the animated films, what has happened to the swashbuckling Puss?
‘‘This last one is very surprising because Puss is very fat,’’ Banderas reveals, with a deep chuckle.
‘‘He just let himself go badly, so he doesn’t feel like hunting any more or killing others, he’s just lazy, very lazy.
I thought it was just a fantastic concept, and the reimagination of Puss as this spoiled, pampered pet is inspired.’’ While fans may soon be bidding farewell to Shrek, Puss will be back with his own spin-off film, expected for release next year.
‘‘I already did the first recordings and it’s going to be called Puss In Boots: The Story Of An Ogre Killer,’’ Banderas confirms. After Shrek, Banderas’s next film You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, which premiered at Cannes in May, sees him working with the bespectacled legend that is Woody Allen.
‘‘It was great but weird at the same time,’’ he admits.
‘‘When I was 25 years old, I worked in Madrid wearing a Tshirt printed with his face. So, being on the set and seeing the same guy on my T-shirt – he is literally the same guy because he wears the same glasses and the same hat – it was quite impressive.’’ Having worked with Hollywood heavyweights like Quentin Tarantino, Sir Anthony Hopkins and now Allen, Banderas - who turns 50 in August - has two dreams.
‘‘I have admired many of my colleagues in the business but I would love to work with Robert De Niro – he is one of my heroes, and I have yet to work with someone of that calibre,’’ he says, as his first wish.
‘‘He was the one who inspired me through films like Raging Bull and Taxi Driver.
When I started doing movies, I would say ‘I want to be like that guy, he is so convincing’.
I thought he was so powerful and so special.’’ His second dream is to make his own films.
"I am interested in working behind the cameras," he says.
“It does not correspond with the fact I am turning 50 years old, but from experience. I have shot 82 films now. When you’ve been in front of the cameras for so many years, you get more and more interested to tell the story from your point of view and I will develop that further."
■ Shrek Forever After opens in cinemas tomorrow
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