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‘I never had a problem with playing the Latin lover, but you can’t do it at 60 years old’ Above: Banderas strikes a pose with Puss In Boots co-star Salma Hayek shape. “I feel better than ever,” he says. “I’m totally happy. I feel good with life.” It helps that he’s just celebrated his 15th wedding anniversary with actress Melanie Griffith. Having met her on 1996’s Two Much while still married to Spanish actress Ana Leza, it’s a union that few people gave any chance of surviving. So what’s their secret? “It’s very simple,” he whispers. “It’s love.” Living with their 14-year-old daughter Stella in California, Banderas maintains the couple has “a very, very normal life”. Then again, “normal” in Hollywood means something else. Perching on a white-cushioned sofa, Banderas tells me about Griffith’s mother, Tippi Hedren, the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960s films The Birds and Marnie, who now operates an exotic animal sanctuary. “My mother-in-law has 72 lions – this is absolutely true – an hour and 25 minutes north of Los Angeles,” he says. “Is that crazy or what? She used to have two elephants, but they died.” ANTONIO BANDERAS For Banderas, Griffith’s Hollywood upbringing was light years away from his own childhood in Málaga. Growing up in the repressive twilight years of Franco’s regime, his mother was a schoolteacher and his father a member of Franco’s secret police, which was not quite as dramatic as it sounds – he worked in the customs department. “In fact, he voted socialist the moment the party was legalised.” As a child, Banderas dreamed of becoming a vet, then a lawyer, and finally a professional footballer, until a broken left foot ended his hopes. Then, when he was 13, he saw a production of the musical Hair and his life was transformed. “When I was a teenager, everybody else was into rock’n’roll. I was theatre, theatre, theatre.” Even so, his emotions were in turmoil. “I don’t remember those years as being happy at all. I remember a lot of confusion, emptiness, not knowing what to do. What am I going to do with my life? Am I going to be an actor?” It wasn’t until he and some friends formed a theatre group – named Dintel – that his confidence began to swell. “I started relaxing in a certain way and just giving my life a certain perspective that I didn’t have at the time at all,” he says. “It’s very interesting in a country that was not allowed to dream that we Jet2.com 27