Antonio Banderas is a stylish leading man of stage and screen, best known for his roles in Zorro and Shrek movies. Before making his Hollywood debut in in 1992's The Mambo Kings, Banderas appeared in dozens of Spanish movies, including director Pedro Almodovar's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990). He has then received critical praise for Philadelphia (1993, starring Tom Hanks), proved himself an able action hero in the Robert Rodriguez film Desperado (1995) and became a box office star with The Mask of Zorro (1998). One of the busiest actors in filmdom, his movies include Spy Kids and its sequels (2001-03), Shrek 2 (2004) and Shrek the Third (2007), The Legend of Zorro (2005, with Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Take the Lead (2006). In 1999 he directed his wife, actress Melanie Griffith, in the movie Crazy in Alabama, and in 2006 he took another turn behind the camera for Summer Rain.
Career Highlights: The Law of Desire, The Mask of Zorro, Matador
First Major Screen Credit: Pestanas Postizas (1982)
Biography
Internationally known for his charisma and smoldering good looks, Antonio Banderas is the ultimate manifestation of the Latin heartthrob. Born in Málaga, Spain on August 10, 1960, Banderas wanted to become a professional soccer player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of fourteen. He went on to enroll in some drama classes, eventually joining a theatre troupe that toured all over Spain. His work in the theatre, and his performances on the streets, eventually landed him a spot with the National Theatre of Spain.
While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his film debut, Laberinto de Pasione (Labyrinth of Passion) (1982). He went on to appear in the director's La Ley del Deseo (Law of Desire) (1984), making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodóvar's Matador (1986), the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1988). The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when he starred in Almodóvar's controversial Atame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love.
Banderas made his first stateside appearance as an unwitting object of Madonna's affections in Truth or Dare (1991). The following year, still speaking next to no English, he starred in his first American film, The Mambo Kings. It was a testament to his acting abilities that, despite having to learn all of his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician. He broke through to mainstream American audiences as the gay lover of AIDS-afflicted lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) in Philadelphia (1993). The film's success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year he was given a substantial role in Neil Jordan's high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, which allowed him to share the screen with the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
Banderas subsequently appeared in a number of films of widely varying quality, doing particularly strong work in Desperado (1995), Evita (1998), and The Mask of Zorro (1998). In 1999, he made his first foray into directing with Crazy in Alabama, a black comedy starring Melanie Griffith, to whom he had been married since 1996. The following year he starred as an aspiring boxer opposite Woody Harrelson in Play It to the Bone, portrayed a Cuban tycoon with a bad seed bride (Angelina Jolie) in Original Sin, and starred alongside Bob Hoskins and Wes Bentley in The White River Kid. Well established as a hearthrob and a talented dramatic actor by the end of the 1990s, the fact that Desperato director Robert Rodriguez was the only director to have expolored Banderas' comic potential (Banderas provided one of the few memorable performances in Rodriguez's segment of the otherwise abysmal Four Rooms (1995)) hinted at a heretofore unexplored but potentially lucrative territory for the actor. Later approached by Rodriguez to portray the super-spy patriarch in the family oriented adventurecomedySpy Kids (2001), Banderas charmed children and adults alike with his role as a kidnapped agent whose children must discover their inner stregnth in order to rescue their mother and father. After reprising his role in the following year's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Banderas would next return to more adult oriented roles in both Brian DePalma's Femme Fatale and the ill-fated Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (both 2002). After essaying a more historic role in the dramatic biopic Frida (also 2002), the remarkably diverse actor would one again team with Rodriguez for the sprawling Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
He began appearing in American films; some of his earlier roles there included the 1992 film, The Mambo Kings, as well as a supporting role in the Oscar-winning 1993 film, Philadelphia. He appeared in several major Hollywood releases in 1995, including a starring role in the Robert Rodriguez-directed film, Desperado. In 1996, he starred alongside Madonna in Evita, an adaptation of the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in which he played the narrator, Che, a role originally played on Broadway by Mandy Patinkin. He also received critical praise for his role as the legendary Mexican masked swordsman, Zorro in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro, for which he was the first Spanish actor to portray the character after over 80 years since Zorro's creation.
In 2003, he returned to the musical genre, appearing to great acclaim in the Broadway revival of Maury Yeston's musical Nine, based on the film 8½, playing the prime role originated by the late Raúl Juliá. Banderas won both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for best actor in a musical.[1] His performance is preserved on the Broadway cast recording released by PS Classics.
His voice role as Puss in Boots in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third made the character popular on the family film circuit. In 2005, he reprised his role as Zorro in The Legend of Zorro, though this was not as successful as the original. In 2006, he starred in Take the Lead, a high school-set movie in which he played a real-life ballroom dancing teacher. That year, he also received the L.A. Latino International Film Festival's "Gabi" Lifetime Achievement Award on 14 October .[2] He hosted Saturday Night Live's 600th episode (in season 31). The musical guest was Mary J. Blige. He performed a voice-over for a computer-animated bee which can be seen in the United States in television commercials for Nasonex,[3] an allergy medication, and was seen in the 2007 Christmas advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer, a Britishretailer.[4] He is being considered for the part of Hadrian in the in-production (as of February 2008) film Memoirs of Hadrian.[5]
Personal life
Banderas divorced his first wife, Ana G. Leza, and in May 1996 married actress Melanie Griffith,[6] whom he met a year earlier when they shot Two Much.[7] They have a daughter, Stella del Carmen Banderas, born in 1996, who appeared in the film Crazy in Alabama (1999), in which Griffith starred and which Banderas directed.[8]
He has invested his movie earnings in Andalusian products, which he promotes in Spain and the USA.[8] He owns 50% of a winery in Northern Spain called Anta Banderas which makes red and rose wines.[9]
While he speaks in his native Andalusian Spanish with his family and Spanish press, he switches to the Castilian pronunciation when playing non-Andalusian roles or when dubbing his Hollywood roles.[citation needed] He is a long time supporter of the Málaga CF[10] and Real Madrid Football Club.[8]
