Antonio Banderas: Banderas on the Run

No, Banderas didn't get to chew necks and scenery alongside Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins, but he can at least sublimate those vampiric urges (and match cheekbones) with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and River Phoenix in director Neil Jordan's movie of Interview With the Vampire. Calling himself "a big fan of Anne Rice," Banderas admits signing up to play Armand, a lover of the vampire Lestat "even though I wasn't sure whether Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons or whoever might play Lestat. The script is strange, touching and the [project] has such a long history, years and years, I think it will be interesting to see what Neil Jordan will do with it, especially after The Crying Game." Ironically, the movie's shooting schedule squelched the possibility that Banderas might have starred in director Garry Marshall's comedic movie take on Exit to Eden, another Anne Rice fantasia, about an anything-goes pleasure island for wealthy S&M devotees. (Paul Mercurio from Strictly Ballroom got the part instead.)

Irony also played into Banderas's appearing with Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder and Jeremy Irons in the upcoming movie version of The House of the Spirits, directed by The Best Intentions helmer Bille August and based on Isabel Allende's sweeping, award-winning novel of intergenerational jealousy, psychic powers, social ferment and, of course, amor. "The movie project that first brought me to America was Of Love and Shadows, taken from another Allende work," Banderas explains, adding sadly that the project, hopefully to be directed by Betty Kaplan, has "not yet been made, because of money. But someday. To work with the people of the level that I did in The House of the Spirits was a pleasure." Not the diva-laden, heavy-going affair rumors pegged it as being? Shaking his head in the negative, Banderas insists, enthusiastically, "My memories of it are all very good."

Whatever the outcome of Philadelphia and The House of the Spirits, Banderas's exposure coupled with his thoroughly prepared, easy-going reputation, have spread nice-guy rumors around town. Not a bad thing when you're as good-looking and magnetic as he is. "Directors here want to know if I am malleable," he observes. "I don't go to auditions putting on a character like a new skin. I just try to understand what the director wants of me." But, up close and in his European-made movies, he's not passive and moody the way he came off in The Mambo Kings. "I sometimes have very bad reactions to things, I show a short temper that, later, I always regret," he admits, although he strikes me as muy simpatico, for an actor, anyway. "A doctor in Spain who was examining me put his fingers on my back and that left a mark for hours. He said, 'Wow, that shows that you have a temper.'"

What Banderas never hides is how much he likes to goof. He tells me he found it particularly amusing when Billy Crystal referred to him as the "new sex symbol" who would replace Richard Gere when Banderas and Sharon Stone sexed up the Oscar ceremonies a year and a half ago. Shaking his head, Banderas recalls being served up around town as the tapa picante of the instant.

"It was a strange, strange experience. I remember looking out from the stage at the Oscars seeing Liza Minnelli, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Costner, thinking, What am I doing here? This is not my place. I hadn't seen Basic Instinct at the time, so I didn't even know who Sharon Stone was then, but I tell you, she is smart, funny, an incredible beauty, controversial. We later did a champagne commercial together, and Sharon is perfect to work with Almodovar. Perfect. But the truth is, at the Academy Awards, the only thing I could focus on was that I had bought a pair of new shoes and couldn't bear the pain. My wife and I went to the party afterwards and I met John Singleton and Spike Lee, people I really like, thinking, I either have to leave or take off these shoes, but if I take them off, I'll never be able to put them on again. That Hollywood stuff, cameras flashing, people in the stands screaming, 'Aaarggghhh!' is circus craziness: fun to play with, but that's all it is. At least, being there is something I can tell my grandson about in the future. You know, 'Once, a long time ago...'"

Banderas knows firsthand about fan stuff, Spanish style. "I get a lot of this a few meters behind me," he says, and then, cracking up, leaning behind me, he proceeds to demonstrate: "You be Antonio," he suggests. Mimicking two fans trailing a movie star, he whispers, '"Is that Antonio Banderas?' 'No, he's shorter than that,' "That's him, he only looks taller in real life.'" Point taken.

"Artists are more a part of the normal public in Madrid," Banderas explains. "I'd see the very biggest stars out without any hassle. There, I can go into the street, to the supermarket. Only if I go into a big store, people will ask for my autograph. But they're very nice, very complimentary."

Always? Have any of them, particularly given the erotic aura that trails Banderas like fumes from a cigarillo, crossed a line? His face goes uncharacteristically morose for a moment. Like someone shot out the lights. "A guy got my phone number and was leaving scary messages on my answering machine when I did Law of Desire," he says, referring to Pedro Almodovar's terrific 1987 film in which Banderas plays a charismatic movie director's would-be male lover.

"Continually, for a couple of months, he was telling me, 'You don't know me, but I know you. I'm gonna find you, take you behind some corner and...' From then on, I was watching a little bit all the time--especially at night, if I was going out alone. Someone crazy can come to your city, watch you, find things out about you and scare you really badly. But after that, it stopped. Nothing more. And Spain is not so dangerous as here. In America, everyone has guns. When we were making Philadelphia, it was almost impossible for the stars I was working with just to have a normal night in a restaurant. Not without bodyguards."

Happily, Banderas, a natural born self-spoofer, maintains ironic distance on the prospect of American stardom. "I am moving myself through life with a sense of humor. To me, any other way is ridiculous, disgusting. You see, I never came to America looking for anything. I'm here because someone sent me a good script. If someone calls me from India with a good script, that's where I'm gonna be. I don't want a big limo. I don't care about making a lot of money. If someone calls me from India with a good script, that's where I'm gonna be. I would die to work with David Lynch, with Francis Coppola, but, if I'm not what people are looking for, I'll go home where I have my own work."

So, then, Banderas sees himself as more an actor than a star? Nodding vigorously, he says, "The big difference between a star and an actor is someone who knows the technique, who knows how to learn from everything that happens to him. A star is acting himself all the time. You have to have the energy for that and a nice character. I don't know if I'm that brilliant the whole day. I have my own shit with me all the time and I don't want to lose that. I can't all the time be making this beautiful smile, faking that I'm someone else, because that's insane."

Part of Banderas's balance might stem from the delight he takes in shocking and provoking. This you can see in roles he yearns for, like playing young Mussolini in an Italian production that has been on and off for the past year. Or in the Lovesexy Prince cap he sports in homage to the Purple One. Maybe it isn't surprising that he grew up middle class in balmy, sensual Malaga during Franco's repressive reign in Spain. His father, who served in the secret police, and his mother, who taught school, flipped when he decided to become an actor, entering Malaga's School of Dramatic Arts.

By 21, he had outgrown the local troupe that put on shows in a donated theater, moved to Madrid and, after taking more classes, began making the audition rounds and landing stage roles ("My arithmetical progression," Banderas explains, savoring the sound and the substance of the phrase). He won a five-year stint at Spain's prestigious National Theater, doing everything from Marlowe to Brecht. Now, he says shyly, he is touched that his parents so "love the profession that my mother keeps a scrapbook about me."

Mrs. Banderas may soon need more scrapbooks. Aside from the five movies her son has pending, he wants to raise a family and to direct. Who is he, exactly? "A happy guy," he answers like a shot. "I am just like the waves on the seas, rolling in the wind. In my work, I am looking to be much better, to increase my involvement in movies, in art. I'm in love with the camera." The feeling's mutual.

__________________

Stephen Rebello interviewed James Caan for the October Movieline.

Pages: 1 2 3