Pedro Almodóvar. Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Marvel has given us a healthy legacy of gratuitous shirtless scenes, allowing audiences to ogle the hunky physiques of Michael B. Jordan, Tom Holland, and Chrises Evans and Hemsworth. But what does a director like Pedro Almodóvar, famous for his poppy, sexy dramadies, make of big American movies and their directors, when neither are as adept at showing desire and sexuality, let alone navigating it in an interesting way? “Here, perhaps, there is a kind of self-censorship that doesn’t allow the writers to write other kinds of stories,” he told Vulture at Film at Lincoln Center’s 50th-anniversary gala Monday night. “There are many, many movies about superheroes. And sexuality doesn’t exist for superheroes. They are neutered. There is an unidentified gender, the adventure is what’s important. You can find, among independent movies, more of this sexuality. The human being has such sexuality! I get the feeling that in Europe, in Spain, that I have much more freedom than if I worked here.”

If, tomorrow, Kevin Feige phoned Almodóvar and said that he was desperately wanted to add more than a gratuitous shirtless scene or two to the next Marvel movie, would the Spanish director sign on? “No, no! I don’t think so. It’s too big for me! I like to see what I’m doing, to direct movies the same day,” he said. “You have to wait too long to see the results [with big movies]. I like being able to impose my opinion as a director. I’ve made 21 movies. I’m used to doing it the way I like, not fitting with the Hollywood system.”