Antonio Banderas on how his heart attack changed his life: It's 'like death talked to you'
NEW YORK – After nearly 40 years in the business, Antonio Banderas could finally make his first trip to the Academy Awards' stage.
The dashing Spanish actor best known for "Desperado," "Evita" and the "Shrek" and "Zorro" movies delivers his most understated and moving performance yet in Spanish-language drama "Pain and Glory" (in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, expanding wider throughout October and November), in which he plays an ailing filmmaker reflecting on his childhood, career and past relationships.
The autobiographical film is inspired by Banderas' longtime collaborator, writer/director Pedro Almodovar, and won Banderas the best actor prize at Cannes Film Festival in May. Oscar could be next, with many pundits on awards site GoldDerby predicting he'll clinch his first acting nomination for "Pain and Glory," which is also heavily favored to earn a best foreign-language film nod. But the genteel leading man waves off such chatter, just as awards-season campaigning starts to heat up.
"They make us raise our hand and say, 'I want the award!' and if you don't do that, it's very difficult to get it," Banderas demurs. "Of course (it'd be nice) – it's the most important award. I just don't want to live out fantasies and keep my feet on the earth."
Taking a break from co-directing and starring in an upcoming production of "A Chorus Line" in his hometown of Malaga, Spain, where he bought and refurbished a theater, Banderas, 59, sat down with USA TODAY at the New York Film Festival to chat about "Pain and Glory," ex-wife Melanie Griffith and more.
Question: Pedro Almodovar said making "Pain and Glory" was ultimately "therapeutic" for him. Was it similarly cathartic for you?
Antonio Banderas: Yes. I had a heart attack 2½ years ago, and it helped me understand this character. Almodovar himself said, “Something changed in you since you had this cardiac event.” I told him, “I know exactly what you mean.” And he said, “Well, don’t hide it. ... There’s something interesting in there that has to do with vulnerability and another perception of reality.” Things you might’ve thought were important before vanish, and you realize the only thing that is really, really (definite) is death – everything else is relative.
Q: How did your outlook on life change after your heart attack?
Banderas: It’s very interesting because it's the opposite of what people may think. “Are you afraid?” No! I am less afraid to actually be me because you realize that you will die. When you get to a certain age, you know that; it’s always there in your brain. But this is a different thing: This is almost like death talked to you and she said, “I’m close.” You lose the fear to just express yourself in a different way, and I think the heart attack brought me that.
Now, there is only space for truth and nothing else. So you start searching for it: What is my truth? What am I? What is my role in life? Then all the people you love (become even more important) – your daughter, your family, your friends – and now I'm just in the process of trying to make my profession what it was in the beginning: my hobby, the thing I really love to do, regardless of what it is going to bring to me.
Q: Did shooting this film also make you reflect on your career? When you moved back to Europe a few years ago, you said you were "angry" and "tired" of Hollywood, and felt you were being typecast. But you've worked steadily ever since (also co-starring in "The Laundromat," now in theaters).
Banderas: It was my fault; it was never the fault of Hollywood. Now, I have to make a distinction: There are directors who do independent movies and work circumstantially in Hollywood, but they’re not part of the system. But “Hollywood Hollywood” is a factory: They do a very specific product and if you want to play the game, that’s what it is. Sometimes you get caught up in the race of things.
There was an agent many years ago who said to me, “Antonio, the most important word in Hollywood is 'no.' You have to learn to say 'no.' " And at some point, I probably forgot that.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to work in Hollywood. If people like ("Laundromat" director) Steven Soderbergh call me? Of course I’ll go. I love to work with Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman – they’re not only great actors, but are generous and wonderful as human beings. But I don’t feel the obligation that I felt before (to work in America).
Q: You recently called Melanie Griffith your "best friend" in an interview with Vulture. (They divorced in 2015 and share one child, 23-year-old Stella Banderas.) Did it take a while to reach that point where you could be friends?
Banderas: You know, divorce is kind of a tsunami – it’s crazy. But then the truth comes, and the truth for Melanie and me is that we love each other. And she’ll always be there because she is the mother of my biggest production: my daughter. I love the woman; I continue to admire her. I loved her when she was working (constantly) in all those movies in the '80s and the '90s, and I felt that she was magnificent. We’re good friends and we know each other very well. We were talking yesterday.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Antonio Banderas says heart attack 'changed him' for 'Pain and Glory'
