Spanish actor Antonio Banderas went from exotic art-house import and rising star in upscale films to tabloid romantic and overexposed star in mediocre fare. How, with his life in better focus and The Mask of Zorro hitting screens, Banderas sounds a confident note as he talks about wielding swords, living with Melanie Griffith, directing his first movie, and hoping and preparing for what he knows would be the role of his life, The Phantom of the Opera.
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Antonio Banderas's romance with America began from afar with his star turns in a string of outre comedies by iconoclastic Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. Eventually his bruised-angel soulfulness proved so globally appealing, the actor left Spain for a grab at stardom in Hollywood. I first encountered Banderas five years ago when he'd already debuted in The Mambo Kings and was ensconced in a Beverly Hills hotel suite to tout his upcoming films--_Philadelphia, The House of the Spirits_ and I_nterview With the Vampire_, all due out in the space of a year. Despite his gravy-thick accent and shaky English, he clearly had charm, graciousness and laser-focused ambition to back up his talent and stay afloat in showbiz's toughest town.
By the time of our second interview in 1995 (same hotel, much larger suite), Banderas had attained full-fledged heartthrob status. His English had improved markedly, and his passion, playfulness and all-around niceness had further blossomed. Even by then, however, things had begun to take a different turn. Miami Rhapsody, Desperado, Assassins, Never Talk to Strangers, Four Rooms--none of these films hit big for Banderas, and some were just awful. On top of that, Banderas had just gone public about his relationship with one of Hollywood's favorite pinatas, Melanie Griffith, whom he met while filming Two Much. The next couple of years would be brutal.
But even Banderas doubters could see right away that his performance in 1996's Evita was both risky and stellar. Had it not been for the eclipsing presence of Madonna, the fact that he had reinvented himself on-screen would have been more widely heralded. In the end, though, Evita did its work, because The Mask of Zorro, a Steven Spielberg-produced project that had been stalled for almost five years, moved into high gear with Banderas in the title role. Checking in with Banderas for this, our third interview, I find the star looking in peak form in a crisp white linen shirt, worn-in jeans and work boots at his production offices where he's making final preparations for his directorial debut, Crazy in Alabama, in which Melanie Griffith and he will star. Banderas is as winning, funny and passionate as ever, though changed in ways he's happy to talk about.
STEPHEN REBELLO: It's early morning, so an easy question first. Why did you name your production company Green Moon?
ANTONIO BANDERAS: Because the great Federico Garcia Lorca used to write that we Andalusians are not dark from the sun, but from the green moon. He says we have the color of the leaves of the olive tree.
Q: You've been in America for eight years. In what way do you think you've been most Americanized?
A: In no way. When I go back to Spain, the biggest compliment I get from my friends is, "Man, you're the fucking same--pardon me [laughs], it's early--as you were years ago." I am the same guy. If I ever lose that, that's it for me. I am a marionette with the strings cut.
Q: Between Interview With the Vampire and Evita, though, you might have feared you'd lost yourself.
A: I have felt very lost. I've made movies that felt wrong. But I had to send money to my family--and I would do it again. I come from a country where, merely to survive, you have to keep working and working. When I came here I used the same system. I did six movies in 1995 and some of them came out in theaters at almost the same time. People said, "What is going on with Antonio?" They were tired of Antonio Banderas.
Q: Hey, I like you and I was tired of you.
A: [Laughs] No one was more tired of Antonio Banderas than Antonio Banderas.
Q: I handled it by completely avoiding Miami Rhapsody, Four Rooms and Assassins. What did you do?
A: [Laughs] It's a very good exercise in humility to have a fiasco or two. It's the nature of the beast that you mostly work blind. I got pow'd! right in the face and I learned a lot about myself. I went inside, you know? I went low-key, in terms of the press. And I turned down many things.
Q: What shifted you back on track?
A: When I was offered Evita, it was the most fantastic bridge for me in every way. It was quality, that film. It's almost an art movie in the way it's shot, composed and edited. It made me excited again. It made me stick out my jaw again and say, "Go ahead, take your best shots." Pow! Pow! Pow! [Laughs] Now, I want to be "rediscovered" and to rediscover myself.
Q: Many people feel your performance in Evita was underrated. Oscar nominations have been won for much less.
A: Well, there's nothing you can do about that, is there? All you can do is be very respectful of all the decisions of the Academy. I mean, I'm the Academy, too. It's made up of practically everybody in the business.
Q: With The Mask of Zorro things seem to be going your way at the moment.
A: What's going on now is cool. Scary cool. Always in my mind is the thought, "What a roller coaster this profession is." I'm very happy with The Mask of Zorro. About some movies, I say, "Well, let's see what happens when the movie opens at the box office." With this one, I don't care. It's like a little jewel I'll keep in my heart forever. There have been, I think, 35 different films all around the world of Zorro, so that tells you the figure of Zorro has great importance as a cultural figure. My big test for the movie? It reminds me of being a little kid again in Malaga and watching Zorro at the movies on Sunday morning and we were all stamping our feet and cheering as if we were at a soccer match.
Q: The sword fight between you and Catherine Zeta Jones, in which you swap wisecracks and slash off each other's clothes, is the kind of stuff that made me fall in love with the movies.
A: Catherine is a little like a Claudia Cardinale, isn't she? I took Almodovar to see the movie and he loved that scene, too. He's very critical with me, always, and doesn't much like action movies, but he loved Zorro. He left the theater and said, "This is big. I like it. It's fun. I felt like I was watching a '40s movie and Erroll Flynn was in it. You've done a classic adventure movie now." [Laughs] I think this movie is great for little kids and for people who have a little kid still inside who aren't afraid to show that.
Q: What about your upcoming movie The Thirteenth Warrior?
A: It's a very unusual movie. Director John McTiernan shot it using Steadicam. The idea was that, as opposed to a normal action movie, you, as the audience, participate in the movie in a more "documentary" sort of way. The story is set 10 centuries ago, but the idea is to draw you into the characters. This Arab guy that I play gets caught by cruel Vikings and their cultures dash completely. But they have a mission to carry out, and that starts pulling them together.
Q: You're about to direct and star in a movie with Melanie. That would be risky in any case, but it's also a story with larger-than-life characters set in the deep South in 1965.
A: I'm jumping into a boat on rocky waves, aren't I? Melanie kept telling me what a great script Crazy in Alabama was, and when I finally read it, I knew I wanted to do it. It reminds me of growing up in Spain and hearing about America, a world that seemed like another planet--John and Bobby Kennedy, the men on the moon, Martin Luther King Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Elvis. Why am I sitting here wearing jeans right now? Every young guy around the world from the late '40s on has been raised in the shadow of American culture. I grew up watching Bewitched, The Beverly Hillbillies, and now, after living here for eight years, I feel closer to American issues. I've studied a lot about politics in America, just as I was interested in those issues in Spain. The movie will be about the absurdity and contrast of those years in which they were telling you, "Buy this car and life will be beautiful," while black kids were being beaten for nothing. It gives me a chance to touch on racism, which I see as equal to stupidity and ignorance.
Q: Any trepidation about tackling such an American milieu?
A: I could give in to my panic and say, "No, I'm not American, it's improper for me to do this movie." But, who directed Chinatown? Someone from Poland. Look at the great American movies Fritz Lang did. Billy Wilder is Austrian, but The Front Page, The Apartment and Some Like It Hot are as American as the Statue of Liberty. Sometimes people who come from "outside" have an objectivity, another point of view that makes things very interesting.
Q: Any concerns about working so closely with Melanie on both sides of the camera?
A: Melanie and I are both aware of the risks and want to take them. I'm working for scale, and I have no participation in the profits. I admired Melanie as a talent before I loved her. She's a great actress, a natural. I may not even direct her--I may just say, "Action" and "Cut."
Q: Melanie often gets knocked or ignored because of public perception of her past, her personal life. Do you feel she's underrated?
A: Working Girl. Stormy Monday. Something Wild. Nobody's Fool. That's what she can do and much more. You're right, her personal life has prejudiced people about both of us. But Melanie's going to have her reward someday. I don't think she's had that yet. If she continues to get to do the work she's doing now, she's going to be recognized as awesome.
Q: You have both been the subjects of unflattering magazine stories, particularly one cover story that became very talked about.
A: When I saw that GQ on the newsstand, I was so excited. The writer and I had talked in New York the day of the premiere of Desperado. She rode with us in the limo. She sat next to us at the premiere. She came to North Carolina, where Melanie was shooting Lolita, and we completely opened our doors to her for two days, talking about politics, charities, our professions, our personal life, our feelings--everything. When I opened the magazine, I found nine pages of a woman insulting Melanie as this bubblehead. I thought, "Where are those days we spent together? Where is our conversation?" All of that gone for nine pages of insults to Melanie?
Q: Do people fabricate wholly untrue stories about you?
A: A writer the other day told me that one of the people who wrote a big story on me was saying in New York that I hit on her. [Laughs] I said, "Whaaaat? No way!" That person was not only in my house, but in my house with Melanie. Why would I do such a thing? I think even journalists are becoming victims of gossip. There's so much competition and so much unchecked information, I believe we're becoming victims of our own technology. People are intoxicated with excessive information. It's strange, but movies are actually becoming more related to reality than information from the news.
Q: You've even become a nude pinup on the Internet.
A: I was naked in Playgirl and it was not even my body, but an image created on the Internet. We went to the magazine and said, "I'm going to sue you," and they said, "No, you can't, because we took this from a source of information, which is the Internet, that we didn't create." So, a guy can go anonymously on the Internet and create whatever he wants? The media have become so complex, you find you're fighting against a monster that is way more powerful than you. I've never sued anyone in my entire life and I think I never will because, if I do, they're going to punch me even more. But some of these people are going to get it in person! [Laughs]
Q: You two have definitely been punching bags for gossip.
A: [Laughs] Did you see that National Enquirer where Melanie stepped into my bedroom and I was supposedly completely naked with a young girl? It was supposedly my masseuse, and they said that Melanie screamed, "From now on, we'll have a masseur!" Not one word of that is true. My publicist called them and asked, "Who said this?" and they said, "An insider." But not one word of that is true! They said, "Tell Antonio that it's fun." Well, it's fun for them. It's fun for someone to read who doesn't like me. For me, it's not a joke.
Q: Does Melanie have anything to worry about in terms of you straying?
A: Melanie has nothing to worry about. I'm not going to tell you that she isn't jealous, but I'm much, much more jealous of her than she is of me. She never says, "Who are you going to shoot with?" But me? Sometimes I'm like, "Who's in the movie with you? How does he look?"
Q: How do you guys handle the gossip?
A: For awhile, we were tacking up the [tabloid] stories on the wall. Melanie rolls on the floor laughing about this stuff. I don't. She doesn't pay the least bit of attention to that. Me, it hurts. When it comes to nasty things in magazines and newspapers, I am like an actor friend of mine. At parties, people will ask him, for a joke, "What did they say about you in 1983 in that newspaper?" and he'll recite the whole bad review word by word, with commas and periods.
Q: What about paparazzi?
A: We've been followed by paparazzi in cars all around the world and have had to escape. We had a very tough time in Argentina [shooting Evita]. Melanie was pregnant and we had to get her to the hospital. It was big news because they wrote that she was going to have an abortion. By the time we came out, it was paparazzi everywhere. We were protected there by the federal police because of the death threats against the _Evita _company When I have my own bodyguards, I always say, "No hits, no punches, just be polite," but these guys were hospital security and they started throwing punches. So I took Melanie and jumped into the car and a bunch of motorcycles were after us. Melanie was crying. The cars and motorcycles trapped us and we had to stop and be photographed. When she was dose to delivering, there had been guys with cameras sitting in trees for three days taking pictures of Melanie going to the bathroom--everything! When I had to take her to the hospital, there were 60 paparazzi outside who wouldn't let us go. I had to take Melanie climbing with me over a wall to a neighbor's house--she was almost delivering. We put her in the back seat of a rental car and covered her with a blanket and sneaked out.
Q: Do you think people started knocking you because of your relationship with Melanie?
A: It would have happened anyway. People want to cheer for the underdog. They like you when you're struggling and competing with the big, big guys in Hollywood. Now I'm on the other side, so they say, "No, you were fantastic when you were down there." No, I wasn't, really. It's a normal reaction, though. My goal now is to win the people back. But I can only do that with my choices of movies and in my personal life. Melanie and I are getting our lives in position for ourselves, for our careers, and very much for our kids, too. We haven't been in any scandals. We don't keep a high profile. We have a very familial life. Little by little, things have stabilized. I feel so much better than two years ago when everything was stormy, when we drew so much anger and ridicule.
Q: You took particular heat in Spain when you left your wife. How is that these days?
A: In Spain, Melanie is totally accepted. At first, we were not. Once they realized it was a serious relationship, not just an affair, then boom, they respected my decision. It's not as though one relationship ending and another one beginning is so uncommon these days. I will never tell the real story of why I got divorced. It was not because of Melanie Griffith. I never want to be explicit about it, because my [ex-wife] would not have the same opportunities to express her opinion. I will never talk about Don Johnson. I respect him a lot. I also believe that I probably hurt him a lot. But I respect that he and Melanie have a wonderful daughter, Dakota, and I always put in her mind who is her father, that he's a wonderful man, that he's a worker.
Q: Having your personal life settled down must help with putting your professional life in order too, doesn't it?
A: I now pretty much know where I am. Before, it was very confusing. I kept wondering, What exactly is my position in this world? It was a constant question. Now, I think I have a position where I feel comfortable. I can start making choices. I didn't have lots of choices before. Now, I want to take big risks. And, now, for me, the movie of The Phantom of the Opera is not only my choice, it's my dream.
Q: What is it about Phantom that makes it such a dream project for you?
A: I saw the play six times. The character fascinates me. It's a man fighting with himself, a man in solitude, a man with something physical that keeps him apart from the world, a man with tremendous love, passion, the power to make people feel, the power to explode with anger. I think many people can relate on different levels to that character. [He rises from the chair, assumes a grand, tortured Phantom-style pose, and slowly sits back down]. It is so spectacular. So romantic. We have an expression in Spain where we say, "I like this cake, but I like this part best because it's got more sugar than the rest of it!" Phantom is like that to me. Now it is surely the will of Andrew Lloyd Webber that I do the movie, and it's mine, and it's also the people at Warner Bros. Many things can happen in the process, but it's the thing I most want to do as an actor.
Q: You're a pretty emotional guy, and I've never seen you so excited about anything, not even Evita.
A: Oh, I tell you--if I get to do this project, I'm going to seclude myself like a monk for a full year. I have so much work to do. Where Evita was massive, very bold, Phantom is intimate and erotic. I have to build a voice. I already have it in my mind. I know it's there in me, I know exactly how I want him to sound, but I have to work and build so I can translate that sound to my throat. That's going to take time. I have to stop smoking. I have to work out my voice daily for at the very least three or four months. After I take those steps, I have to understand the nature of this character visually. What is his soul? Why does he move in a particular way? If I get to do it, I'm going to go out there with a character unlike anything I've done for any other movie. I want to step into territory no one has ever stepped in before. I want that risk! I may ask Andrew to let me play the Phantom for two or three weeks with one of the touring companies, so that I can perform the role on the stage before live audiences.
Q: You're already so committed to this.
A: Yes! Yes! Everybody asked me when we finished Evita what it was like working with Madonna, and I said the truth--that it was beautiful and that I liked how committed she was to the role. Well, it's time for me to put into practice what I learned from Madonna. That seriousness. That toughness. That complete commitment. She fought, fought, fought--to find the voice, to find the character, to find the truth. I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago at our house, and now that I'm not so passionate about it, now that I don't have to sell it, I can say I was in awe of Madonna. The Phantom of the Opera is the dream of my lifetime, and I have to approach it with Madonna's kind of honesty and fierce commitment.
Q: Is there a director for it?
A: Many directors are afraid of musicals. We've lost the vocabulary for musicals that existed in the 30s, '40s and '50s. It's such an abstract art. Hollywood brought to America great directors--Fritz Lang, Josef von Stemberg--but smashed down their expressionism for naturalism. The only flame of expressionism and surrealism Hollywood kept alive is in the musicals. Who has the bravery and talent to photograph a dream? People who direct musicals are the screen's poets.
Q: So, is there a real-world director/poet for Phantom?
A: [Laughs] Alan Parker would be great. Even Alan, who has quite a bit of experience with the genre, used to say to me making Evita, "You come to me for answers, but, believe me, I've got 20 questions for every answer. We're lost if we don't convince the audience in the first five minutes that this is a world where people sing instead of talk. They'll laugh us off the screen!" Ridley Scott is a good friend of mine and there are things in Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise that tell me he would be fantastic. A Phantom of the Opera _directed by Pedro Almodovar would be interesting. Imagine what Milos Forman could do with it, as he did in _Amadeus!
Q: Sure, but after so many lousy Hollywood musicals have flopped, there's an anti-musical bias.
A: It's a very strange reaction against a whole "genre" you find here in America now. I am an actor because of musicals. That's simply the truth. When someone says "Hollywood," I go right away in my mind to Fred Astaire, An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly, all of the big musicals. Musicals are Hollywood.
Q: Right before you sang at a big London concert for a charity sponsored by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the papers announced he wanted you to do The Phantom of the Opera. Was your appearance there a kind of very public tryout for the movie?
A: No. I'd never sung Phantom before, only Evita, which is a whole different thing. And this was the first time in my entire life that I sang in public. I had never so much as sung for friends in my house. I'm too shy to do that. I got this invitation from Andrew to do it, said yes, then thought, "What am I doing?" Then, it was very humid there and we were rehearsing and the air conditioner was so strong, I got an infection in my throat. The first day of rehearsal, I was coughing with every two lines. So, I spent three hours a day in a steam room cleaning out and, finally, the night came. This was one of the most beautiful nights of my entire life. Unbelievable! I keep making this joke: "I want to be the first actor who goes from a black mask of Zorro to a white one in The Phantom of the Opera."
Q: Sounds like your baby daughter will be hearing lullabies by Andrew Lloyd Webber in the near future. The word is, by the way, you're a very good dad.
A: [Beaming] I think so. I would like to spend more time with my baby, though. I feel very good with her. Very loved by her. In the 18 months since she came into the world, I've learned more from her than she's learned from me. A baby is a very powerful weapon and lesson in your life. They are so raw. They ask so directly for everything that it doesn't matter what you think you were going to do or what you want to do, your baby tells you, "I want you, right now." So, I take off the tuxedo and say, "No, I'm not going. This baby needs me right now." That has changed my whole approach to life.
Q: What things do you hope your baby won't inherit from you and Melanie?
A: It's too late! [Laughs] She's got a temper. If she doesn't get what she wants, she doesn't stop moving, asking, wanting. That's something I am, too. I persevere. I keep fighting. Melanie, too. Melanie and I were born one day apart, August 9th and 10th. We're both Leos. Lions! All the time, we have some sparks going on!
Q: In spite of or because of that, you actually seem happy.
A: Happy is quite a word. [Laughs] I prefer to tell you that I'm a person who loves to be alive. I love to interact with people. Happy? I am a fortunate person. I am very, very thankful.
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Dennis Quaid for the July '98 issue of Movieline.