When you have a heart attack, you see the face of death

BY JASON ADAMS/HOTFEATURES

PHOTOS: CARLOS ALVAREZ/GETTY IMAGES, TASOS KATOPODIS/WIREIMAGE

Antonio Banderas suffered a heart attack two years ago. The Spanish actor says the major health scare has had a profound effect on his life. He recounts, “I remember having the heart attack and thinking, ‘Really? I’m going to finish like this?’ And when I got out of there, I said, ‘Ah no, I have to really, really go for the important things.’

Actors Stella Banderas and Antonio Banderas in Hollywood, California, for the Centerpiece Gala Premiere of Alcon Entertainment's The 33 on November 9, 2015

“And the really important things are my daughter, my friends, and my profession, what I love to do, which is acting and telling stories. Everything else, like the car that I was going to buy, goes out the window. It’s like, ‘I don’t need a new car!’”

Banderas was at the recent Cannes Film Festival 2019 for the premiere of his latest film Pain and Glory. The movie marks the eighth time that Banderas has worked with director Pedro Almodóvar. Pain and Glory traces the decline of a celebrated film director [played by Banderas] and is loosely based on Almodóvar’s own life. Penelope Cruz plays Jacinta – an interpretation of Almodóvar’s mother in her younger days. Banderas also stars later this year alongside Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman in Steven Soderbergh’s new movie The Laundromat. Here, Antonio talks about his latest projects, his first encounter with fellow Spaniard Pedro Almodóvar and what it was like to play a version of the great director on screen. He also talks about his recent TV role playing Pablo Picasso in Genius, his relationship to Malaga, the hometown that they both share, and how he is investing in young actors in his city.

Antonio Bandera & Nicole Kimpel on 25 May 2019 at the Closing Gala premiere of the 72nd Festival de Cannes

SO ANTONIO, YOU’VE HAD AN INCREDIBLE CAREER SO FAR AND IN THE FILM YOUR CHARACTER SAYS, ‘WITHOUT FILM, MY LIFE IS MEANINGLESS’ – CAN YOU RELATE TO THAT?

ANTONIO BANDERAS: Every day more and more. Yes. When you get to my age you will understand [laughs]. But at this moment in life there is only space for the truth. Especially if you’ve had a heart attack, you see the face of death very close to you, and you say, ‘Oh my god, this is it?’ I remember having the heart attack and thinking, ‘Really? I’m going to finish like this?’ And when I got out of there, I said, ‘Ah no, I have to really, really go for the important things.’

DO YOU NEED TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK TO LEARN SOMETHING LIKE THIS?

AB: I suppose not everybody. There are people who are way, way more intelligent than me.

PAIN AND GLORY IS BASED LOOSELY ON PEDRO’S LIFE – DID HE TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE DELICATE ISSUES?

AB: Well, the first conversation we had before he sent me the script was, ‘I’m going to send you something that I have written that is filled with many references that you know.’ So many of the characters that are in the movie are characters that I have met.

There is one character, Alberto, who is like a Frankenstein made of many different actors, even actresses. I can even see some lines there that are mine [laughs]. So it’s a fiction that is more real than the reality, in a way. The movie is filled with those things that Pedro Almodóvar wanted to say and never said.

Antonio Banderas and Pedro AlmodÓvar at the 2011 AFI FEST Special Screening of Law of Desire, Chinese Theater, Hollywood

AND YOU WERE NEVER AFRAID THAT THIS WOULD BECOME TOO PERSONAL?

AB: Every movie that Almodóvar has done has been very personal but this one even more so, yes. Absolutely. I mean it was clear, he didn’t hide anything. When I arrived at the set on the first day, we started rehearsing and we went to do the camera test and he started showing me the colours that I will be wearing. And I saw the set and it’s an exact replica of his house.

CAN YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU MET PEDRO?

AB: Yes. It was in Madrid. I was in a coffee shop outside of the National Theatre, where I was working at that time. And I was with some friends there, other actors, and this guy came with a red briefcase and he sat down. I don’t remember what he said but he was very funny and ingenious. And suddenly he stood up and he looked at me and he says, ‘You should do movies.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ So he left and I asked the others, ‘Who is this guy?’ And they said, ‘His name is Pedro Almodóvar and he made one movie, but he will never do another one.’ [laughs]

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED? HE CAME BACK TO YOU LATER ON, OF COURSE?

AB: A month after he came to the theatre, with Cecilia Roth, somebody said, ‘This young director Pedro Almodóvar is in the audience’ before the performance. I said, ‘Okay.’ So we did the performance and I was in my dressing room and Pedro came and said, ‘Hey, have you done any movies?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Do you want to do a movie?’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ And he just threw me a script and said, ‘Read this character called Sadec [Labyrinth of Passion] and if you like it, you’re in.’ I said, ‘Wow, okay.’ So “ Every movie that Almodóvar has done has been very personal but this one even more so ”

I read it and I called him the next day and said, ‘Hey, I’m in.’ [laughs]

DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH CINEMA, AS A KID?

AB: No. For me it was theatre. My father and mother were theatre aficionados and the theatre, for me, is a special thing. It’s like a wonderful woman who loved me and I left her behind, incomprehensibly. But yeah, theatre was my first love. When I was a little kid, I just loved the ritual of going to a place where a bunch of people tell a story to another bunch of people. I thought it was such an act of civilisation. It was unbelievable to me. So at some point, very, very young, I started being really uncomfortable in the theatre and I didn’t know why. And the reason is that I wanted to be there and not here. I didn’t realise this at the beginning but there was a moment where I said, ‘I have to do this.’ And I then did.

ONE OF THE THEMES OF PAIN AND GLORY IS RECONCILIATION – CAN YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT THAT?

AB: I think that’s where the movie touched the hearts of people, because we all have our own circles that are incomplete in our life. And the movie goes to family, father, boyfriend, actors – and he starts closing those circles and that’s really important. When something is so personal it can become so universal. Actually, it’s very interesting because I think we all have backpacks filled with pain and glory. And so everybody, even if it’s not the same story, connects with some of those things. How many people, for example, wanted to say to their mothers, ‘I’m sorry that I am different, mum, and I’m sorry because I put you in a bad position.’ You have to imagine this from the point of view of somebody like Pedro in the ‘60s, in a dictatorship, in a little village in the middle of La Mancha, where everybody knows everybody and suddenly homosexuality is playing a role there – that is punishing to the family. It was not easy at that time. There are many people who relate to being different in a society that has been punishing people for being different for many years. In fact, there are many countries still in today’s world where they are punishing that behaviour, crazily. So people can relate to this.

ARE YOU ALSO IN RECONCILIATION MODE IN YOUR OWN LIFE? YOU SEEM TO BE CONNECTING MORE WITH YOUR HOME TOWN OF MALAGA AND ARE BUILDING A MUSICAL THEATRE THERE?

AB: In a way, yes. It has to do more with what we were talking about before – going for the truth. I love to see young people getting on the stage and having more opportunities in my home town than I had. It gives me a strange satisfaction that I cannot explain. To see them getting on the stage, doing things, progressing, having opportunities. Because I believe very much that we have a lot of talent in the country. So, if I can give them platforms to shine, I think it is important and makes me feel very good. “ Picasso was continuously searching, until the day he died experimenting ”

Antonio Banderas attends Genius Picasso photocall at Palace Hotel on 28 March 2018 in Madrid, Spain

ARE YOU GOING TO DO MORE DIRECTING?

AB: Yeah, I am writing. I’ve directed two movies and they were basically novels, and the same novelist wrote the script. I have three or four things going at the same time. And I chose the most perfect, romantic way to ruin myself – buying a theatre. I didn’t have any idea how complex the thing was. Even just to reconstruct it – not even reconstruct, it’s almost like building it. So if you see me in the next two years doing any stupid movies, it’s to pay for the theatre.

THIS IS THE EIGHTH FILM YOU HAD DONE WITH PEDRO – CAN YOU TALK US THROUGH THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES FOR YOU?

AB: Law of Desire, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, maybe also Women on the Verge…. Law of Desire because it was not only challenging the rules of cinema and narrative in our country at the time, 1985, but defining the rules of morality. It was an interesting, very simple reflection. I remember my character kills a guy in one of the scenes and that was okay. People didn’t say anything about that – but kissing another person of the same sex! It’s more punishable from a morality point of view than killing. So that simple reflection opened a whole entire thing in my country in the ‘80s.

Everybody was just talking about this, ‘Pedro Almodóvar – how dare he!’ You know, in a Catholic country. So that movie opened closed minds. I remember having an actor with me on the second movie that I directed in Spain and he said to me, ‘Antonio, the night I saw that movie, I went home and I took my mother and my father and I sat them on the sofa and I confessed to them that I was homosexual.’ And I know many people who had seen the movie who took a step ahead and revealed who they were, in a natural way.

AND THE OTHERS?

AB: Women on the Verge... was the first movie that really connected with mainstream audiences. My mother and people thought it was funny and Almodóvar was finally normal!

YOU RECENTLY STARRED AS PICASSO IN TV SERIES GENIUS – HOW WAS THAT?

AB: It was a physically hard shoot. Because it shows Picasso at the age of 82 until his death, I was picked up at 2am and in make-up at 3am to be ready at 8.35, five-anda-half hours later. And then I had to work for 10 hours with make-up that doesn’t allow my face to breathe. And I continued day after day with no sleep. But I learned so much from Picasso. Picasso was, ‘I’ve done this. Next.’ So he was continuously searching, until the day he died experimenting.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER SPANISH ICONS YOU WOULD LIKE TO PLAY?

AB: I would have loved to have played Federico García Lorca. Because he’s Andalusian, probably the best Spanish poet and dramatist ever. But I am too old for that.

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON?

AB: I just did a movie with Steven Soderbergh about the Panama Papers [The Laundromat], which is actually a satire, funny and weird.

Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, and Antonio Banderas attend The Laundromat premiere during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at Princess of Wales Theatre on 9 September 2019 in Toronto, Canada

FINALLY, WHAT IS YOUR MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSION?

AB: Me, myself. Like Pedro says, ‘My body is a cathedral.’ You have to maintain it.