Antonio Banderas!
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Antonio Banderas the theater
While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of director Pedro Almodevar, who cast the young actor in his film debut, Laberinto de Pasione (Labyrinth of Passion) (1982). Antonio Banderas went on to appear in the director's La Ley del Deseo (Law of Desire) (1984), making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required Antonio Banderas to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodevar's Matador (1986), the director cast Antonio Banderas in his internationally acclaimed Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1988). The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when Antonio Banderas starred in Almodevar's controversial Atame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love.Antonio Banderas's first stateside appearance
Banderas made his first stateside appearance as an unwitting object of Madonna's affections in Truth or Dare (1991). The following year, still speaking next to no English, Antonio Banderas starred in his first American film, The Mambo Kings. It was a testament to his acting abilities that, despite having to learn all of his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician. Antonio Banderas broke through to mainstream American audiences as the gay lover of AIDS-afflicted lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) in Philadelphia (1993). The film's success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year Antonio Banderas was given a substantial role in Neil Jordan's high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, which allowed Antonio Banderas to share the screen with the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.Antonio Banderas Evita
Banderas subsequently appeared in a number of films of widely varying quality, doing particularly strong work in Desperado (1995), Evita (1998), and The Mask of Zorro (1998). In 1999, Antonio Banderas made his first foray into directing with Crazy in Alabama, a black comedy starring Melanie Griffith, to whom Antonio Banderas had been married since 1996. The following year Antonio Banderas starred as an aspiring boxer opposite Woody Harrelson in Play It to the Bone, portrayed a Cuban tycoon with a bad seed bride (Angelina Jolie) in Original Sin, and starred alongside Bob Hoskins and Wes Bentley in The White River Kid. Well established as a heartthrob and a talented dramatic actor by the end of the 1990s, the fact that Desperado director Robert Rodriguez was the only director to have explored Banderas' comic potential (Banderas provided one of the few memorable performances in Rodriguez's segment of the otherwise abysmal Four Rooms (1995) hinted at a heretofore unexplored but potentially lucrative territory for the actor. Later approached by Rodriguez to portray the super-spy patriarch in the /family oriented adventure /comedy Spy Kids (2001), Banderas charmed children and adults alike with his role as a kidnapped agent whose children must discover their inner stregnth in order to rescue their mother and father. After reprising his role in the following year's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Banderas would next return to more adult oriented roles in both Brian DePalma's Femme Fatale and the ill-fated Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (both 2002). After essaying a more historic role in the dramatic biopic Frida (also 2002), the remarkably diverse actor would one again team with Rodriguez for the sprawling Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).His voice over work as the rapier wielding cat in Shrek II is marvelous! I like this guy a lot! Antonio Banderas seems to put his all into everything Antonio Banderas does and like Cary Grant has the ability to make even the most innocuous lines work.
