While contemporary audiences might know him best as the swashbuckling Zorro, the gun-toting El Mariachi, or the voice of Shrek's furry friend, Puss in Boots (who's set to get his own spin-off film in 2012), Spanish native and Hollywood veteran Antonio Banderas got his start in the audacious films of art-house darling Pedro Almodovar (including Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Matador, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). Naturally, we were dying to see if Banderas' favorite films were as varied, and as controversial, as the movies in which he's starred -- and we weren't disappointed.
We were also curious to address a pricklier subject regarding movies and the artists who make them, no matter their audience. This week, Banderas, Morgan Freeman, and director Mimi Leder attempt to subvert a popular way of thinking in Hollywood with their heist thriller, The Code; namely, that "direct-to-DVD" doesn't necessarily equal "bad." In The Code, Banderas and Freeman play criminals who form a tenuous partnership in order to pull off a huge heist in New York City; gangsters, girls, double-crosses, and, yes, a room full of lasers provide familiar genre obstacles for the pair, who enjoy a smooth chemistry onscreen in a genre exercise that probably could have performed well in theaters in the '90s.
In this regard, Banderas is a happy pragmatist, and well aware of the difficulties (and values) of working outside of Hollywood on independent productions like The Code. "The work is what you do when you are acting," he told us, satisfied with the experience alone. "But that's the way it goes!"
Read on to see which auteurs Banderas noted among his favorites, why he joined the cast of Mimi Leder's The Code (out this week on DVD) just weeks before filming, his thoughts on independent filmmaking, Fellini, Bunuel, and more, and how being a pragmatist is necessary for an artist in his particular line of work.
You named 8 ½ as one of your favorite films, but you actually earned accolades for your performance on stage in Nine, an adaptation of the film. How did that stage experience differ from your experience watching the film?
Antonio Banderas: Yes I did, actually. It was half a point more, it was Nine. [Laughs] So in a way, I am familiar with the movie, the work, but it was a theatrical experience, slightly different. I know that Federico Fellini actually saw it in 1982 when Raul Julia played it, and he loved the version that they did of it at the time. I never met Federico, unfortunately.
How do you feel about 8 ½ being adapted yet again, in a way, with the film version of Nine?
AB: I know, they already did the movie and apparently it's brilliant. What they did actually is not an adaptation of 8 ½, what they did is an adaptation for cinema of the play that I did. Daniel Day-Lewis is playing [Guido, the main character] and some friends of mine like Penelope Cruz... I didn't see the trailer but my wife saw it the other day and she said it looks fantastic. And I hope the best for them, although I think they're not going to need my hope and I think they did a great job and they'll be very successful and I'm happy for them.
What is it in the material that lends itself to multiple adaptations?
AB: I think that Federico did something that is very open and you can reflect very much over the work that he did, there's always an open door to revise the material with the years. When you're talking about [the subject of] creation, it's something that's very wide and you can get with different times different opinions and points of view, and I think Rob Marshall probably did a great job.
You also named Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, and I agree that it's sadly true that movies that risky are seldom made anymore.
AB: 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 Millionaire 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.AB: It's curious, the case of this movie The Code. 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 The Code with the movies that they have. You know, The Code is a movie that probably, if it would have been presented in the '70s or the '80s, would have been a very successful movie.
When I saw it, I thought that it could have had a good theatrical run even as recently as the '90s.
AB: It's funny, because in Spain, it 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! [Laughs] 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.
Of course, that all makes sense. Even so, it seems like a very good thing that you take a pragmatic approach to the business.
AB: Oh, absolutely. You have to be, in this professional world; otherwise you'd 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 The Code I felt I was doing what I wanted to do.