Overview (4)

Born August 10, 1960 in Málaga, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain Birth Name José Antonio Domínguez Banderas Nickname The Latin Lover Height 5' 9" (1.75 m)

Mini Bio (1)

Spouse (2)

Trade Mark (4)

Andalusian accent



Deep smooth voice





Often cast by Robert Rodriguez

Often cast in Pedro Almodovar's films.



Trivia (29)

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#24) (1995).



Attended and graduated from the School of Dramatic Art in Málaga, Spain.





Ex-stepfather of Alexander Bauer and Dakota Johnson

Has one younger brother: Francisco Banderas.



Chosen by People (USA) magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World (1996).





Became a father for the first time at age 36 when his second wife Melanie Griffith gave birth to their daughter Stella del Carmen Banderas Griffith (aka Stella Banderas ) on September 24, 1996.

In Spanish, his surname means "flags".



Is a supporter of the Málaga soccer team.



Has his own perfume/cologne brand for men - "Blue Seduction Woman".



Was nominated for Broadway's 2003 Tony Award for Best Actor (Musical) for a revival of the musical "Nine".



Had to learn English phonetically and completely from scratch when he arrived in the United States to make a risky attempt in Hollywood.



Despite being raised Catholic, Banderas described himself as an agnostic in a People magazine interview but added that whatever spiritual beliefs his kids may or may not have is fine with him.



Received an honorary doctorate from Dickinson College in Carlisie, Pennsylvania. [May 2000]



Received an honorary doctorate from the University of Malaga in Malaga, Spain. [May 2010]





Formed his own touring theater group in Spain where he met director Pedro Almodóvar



Became a huge fan of his wife, Melanie Griffith , long before he met her. He had first seen her in the film Gefährliche Freundin (1986) and thought she was beautiful and later told a Spanish magazine in 1989 that he would love to meet her. In 1995, when she first arrived on the set of Eine Blondine zuviel - Two Much (1995), he sprinted out of his trailer like a starstruck schoolboy to introduce himself. Nervously, he asked her how old she was. She cursed, laughed, and finally answered she was 37. They soon became a couple and stayed together for 19 years.

Lives in Los Angeles, California, Aspen, Colorado and Marbella, Spain.





Has also provided the Spanish voice-over for Puss in Boots since his first appearance in the sequel Shrek 2 - Der tollkühne Held kehrt zurück (2004).

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on October 18, 2005.



Attended a Friends of the Israel Defense Forces gala in Beverly Hills, California, which raised more than $31 million. [November 2015]





Nominated for the 2018 Emmy Award in the Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie category for his role as Pablo Picasso in Genius (2017), but lost to Darren Criss

Medal of Gold of Merit in the Fine Arts of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (La Coruña, 15 October 2008).





Nominated for the 2019 Golden Globe Award in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television category for his role as Pablo Picasso in Genius (2017), but lost to Darren Criss for American Crime Story (2016).

Personal Quotes (27)

I don't want anything I don't deserve, [but] if they offer me more money, I'm not stupid.





[on his wife, Melanie Griffith , having more plastic surgery] This lust for beauty is a terrible thing. I've forbidden her from ever going to a cosmetic surgeon again. It is something we have agreed to for the sake of our marriage.

If they had offered me James Bond, I probably couldn't have gone to England anymore in my life. James Bond with an accent? That would have been something.





I hate that cat ["Puss in Boots" from Shrek 2 - Der tollkühne Held kehrt zurück (2004)]. Ever since he appeared in my life he's more important than me. Now women always say, "Oh, I love that cat. He's so cute". Before, it was, "I loved you in [ Die Maske des Zorro (1998)]. And sometimes you think, "Is she saying that because she has some other... intention?" But no. They love the cat, and they hate me.

To be married in our profession is not an easy thing. There's too many beautiful people around, very interesting people. It's just a matter of really having-being patient and probably having the capacity and the faith of falling in love with your own wife again. That happens to me.





Melanie [wife Melanie Griffith ] is more of a disciplinarian with the little girl than me, probably because it's my first baby. She gets everything easy from Papa. I am more weak. She takes advantage of me.



I admired [wife Melanie Griffith ] before I loved her.



I get more attention as "the pussycat" in Shrek der Dritte (2007) than I ever did as Zorro.

I don't believe in careers, I just picture myself always as one of those old actors from the 19th century who go from village to village in their repertoire.



When you see actors on the red carpet, they seem to know each other but really it's like a wax museum. Los Angeles is probably one of the fakest cities in the world. For me, it is a working place.





[on being pragmatic in the film business] Oh, absolutely. You have to be, in this professional world; otherwise you would spend your whole life in a psychiatric ward! Going up and down continuously, "I am great!" "I am depressed." No, I think it's important that you understand in this profession that the results are not continuously the most important thing. But the way that you work and the things that you do, for me it's very important in my mind to have clear that my professional life starts at "action!" and finishes at "cut", and whatever happens around that -- yeah, it can be very satisfying sometimes, it can be very depressing at times, but it's just another side of the work. The work is what you do when you are acting. And, I have to say, during the time that we were doing Thick as Thieves (2009) I felt I was doing what I wanted to do.





For me, I joined [the project] very late in the movie; almost 15 days before they started, they called me. And so I had to travel to New York very fast... but for me, the big attraction for accepting the role was

[on films going direct-to-DVD, and the challenges of making Thick as Thieves (2009)] It's funny, because in Spain, it [ Thick as Thieves (2009)] was released theatrically and it did very well with practically no promotion at all, competing with big Hollywood movies. And I understand that they're going to open in like 25 countries also, theatrically. But in America, no -- there were offers from studios, I am aware of that because I talked to [Nu Image and Millenium Pictures head] Avi Lerner , but they didn't want to give the money necessary to compete in a theatrical environment in terms of publicity and promotion. But that's the way it goes! That is our world.For me, I joined [the project] very late in the movie; almost 15 days before they started, they called me. And so I had to travel to New York very fast... but for me, the big attraction for accepting the role was Morgan Freeman , to tell you the truth. The possibility of working with an actor that I really admire. He's got a tremendous personality. He's one of those guys that it doesn't matter what he does in front of the camera, he's always interesting because he's got this aura. And then, Mimi Leder became one of my attractions to the project, because she's a woman that has inside more than I have seen in the movies. A couple of movies of hers I really like, and when I saw her working, she's very powerful. There's also a sensitivity coming from women that I love, and I've been directed by women three or four times, in terms of directing actors and managing the entire set. It's very interesting. So all of those elements made it for me. Then, the results are something that you never know what's going to happen, especially in a movie like this -- a genre movie made by an independent company. That is the problem.



[on films going direct-to-DVD] It's curious, the case of this movie [ Thick as Thieves (2009)]. Because it's a genre movie, and those are movies that normally are supposed to be done by studios. It's very rare -- this is an independent company, but they emulate the studios in a way. It's very difficult to compete with that, because if you have a $20-million movie playing genre, confronting a studio movie with $120-million budget that is doing genre, too, obviously in visual terms and many other ways of looking at a movie these days, especially by the young people who go to the movies these days, it's very difficult to put in competition a movie like "Thick as Thieves" with the movies that they have. You know, "Thick as Thieves" is a movie that probably, if it would have been presented in the '70s or the '80s, would have been a very successful movie.



[on why films like Lawrence von Arabien (1962) aren't being made anymore] It's very difficult if you want to do those movies within structures that are based in commercial issues. You can do movies like that if you go in the independent world. In fact, last year, for example, Slumdog Millionär (2008) is a movie that comes from that world, and it breaks structures because they are more daring. But coming from the studios, it's very difficult to find that. I'm not criticizing the studios; they have to do what they have to do. They're looking for commercial movies, and that's fantastic and it keeps alive the industry and I think that's absolutely fine. But if you want to find those types of risks, you have to go to another structure. I think movies serve many purposes; one can be purely entertainment, another can be a reflection of the human spirit, and another goes in another direction, experimental... many, many different purposes. All of them are good. I am not criticizing specifically one way of making movies; this just is the way it is.

There is nothing in the world that cannot be cured by love. That is the most thing.



[1995] I don't want to have anything that I don't deserve. Sometimes, it even bothers me just to see my name built up more than it actually is. I never believe anything that is happening to me, probably because I am very insecure.



[1995] Everything here in Los Angeles is masks, metaphors, unreality. Everything is concerned with image, the box office, stars. But America is many Americas. What I love about Americans is how pragmatic they are. They don't think and obsess in a sick way about doing something. In Europe, you can feel the weight of many years of history. In a village eight kilometers away from another village, people speak a different language, have their own culture that they want to preserve. People here resolve a problem, act fast, and I love that. Here, ideas are volatile; people believe in people. If you're 60 years old here and you come up with a good idea, you get to develop that idea. In Europe, it's all hierarchies.



[1995, on coming to the United States] When I first came here, it was like I was starting all over again. I had been doing leading characters in my country for five years. There is no tradition of actors from Spain coming to this country. I had done dozens of movies in Spain where, to survive, you have to do a lot of jobs, to jump from movie to movie because they pay you so few dollars to do any movie. You have to keep working, sometimes pick some things that you are not interested in, just because you are a professional. So, I am coming from a work world which is completely different. In Spain, they are proud of me because I am considered like an international soccer player. I have to win a battle outside so that I can represent my country. In a way, they are going, "Antonio, don't blow it!"





When you see paintings by [ Pablo Picasso ], whom I love, some of them make people unbelievably uncomfortable. In the museums in Barcelona, you have all of these people filled with morality, lovers of art, confronted with a Picasso of a woman sucking a man's enormous dick, you know? And there's another painting of a man sucking a woman's pussy. It's Picasso and people have to accept it because this is life, it happens, and Picasso reflects that in these paintings. Real artists have the responsibility to break rules.

[1995, in Movieline magazine] I am not that brilliant. You see, I'm not a star because I am not someone who is playing myself in front of the world. I am not criticizing being a movie star, but I think that to be a star requires you to be brilliant 24 hours a day. That is something that is not in me.



[1993] 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.





[1993, on Mambo Kings (1992) and learning English] When I had my first interview in London with [director] Arne Glimcher , I only knew three, four lines of English to be used at the right moment. The most important was, "I can do that". I was the last one to be cast, so I read with Kevin Kline and Annabella Sciorra , who were going to play my brother and my wife. So Arnold put me in a Berlitz school in New York for a month to learn English with a bunch of business executives from Japan and France. I saw people crying there, like me, because I thought, "I am so stupid, I will never learn this language." One month later, the actors I would read with were both gone; now, it was Armand Assante and Maruschka Detmers and it was different. And then I had to speak with all these big executives at Warner Bros., Terry Semel and all, and I even forgot Spanish. I would use a word like "bottle", and be thinking, "What a strange word". Still, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

I feel content. I am 51 years old and I see a lot of work, a lot of people, a lot of faces, a lot of souls. And I feel like I am in the middle of the game. The match is not over and I may score some goals.



Why do people accept so easily the fact that you can take the life of somebody on the screen and nobody is going to complain about it, and they cannot take that you will kiss somebody of your own sex on the mouth?





[on working with Pedro Almodóvar ] The feelings I had in the '80s, and had again, is that he's pushing you to the limits: that you are on the verge of a cliff. You are in a situation of vertigo. I don't think Pedro works for the masses.



[2015, on his ex-wife Melanie Griffith ] I want - and I think she does too - to maintain a relationship because we have spent many years together... I would like to maintain a relationship and it is happening, I speak with her every other day.



Taylor Swift was singing on the stage and I was sitting down at one table, having dinner. And I had to go on stage to do a little speech, so she came down the stairs and saw me and said "Oh Antonio Banderas" and I thought "Wow, Taylor Swift knows me. That's so cool." Then she looks at me and she says, "My grandmother loves your movies" and I said: "Great, thank you, it was a pleasure meeting you too." And I almost got tears in my eyes.

Salary (2)