november-2011

‘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