José Antonio Domínguez Bandera[1][2] was born on August 10, 1960, in Málaga[3] to Civil Guard gendarme officer José Domínguez Prieto (1920–2008) and schoolteacher Ana Bandera Gallego (1933–2017).[4] He has a younger brother named Francisco.[4] As a little boy, Banderas wanted to become a professional football player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of 15. He showed a strong interest in the performing arts and formed part of the ARA Theatre School run by Ángeles Rubio-Argüelles y Alessandri (wife of diplomat and filmmaker Edgar Neville) and the College of Dramatic Art, both in Málaga. His work in the theater and his performances on the streets eventually landed him a spot with the Spanish National Theatre.[5]
Career
1982–1989: Early collaborations with Pedro Almodóvar
Banderas began his acting studies at the School of Dramatic Art in Málaga and made his acting debut at a small theater in Málaga. He began working in small shops during Spain's post-dictatorial cultural movement known as La Movida Madrileña.[6]
While performing with the theater, Banderas caught the attention of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who gave the young actor his film debut in the screwballsex comedyLabyrinth of Passion (1982). Five years later, he went on to appear in the director's comedic thriller Law of Desire (1987), making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. Banderas appeared in Almodóvar's surrealistsex comedyMatador, with Vincent Canby of The New York Times writing, "The movie looks terrific and is acted with absolute, straight-faced conviction by the excellent cast headed by Miss Serna, Mr. Martinez and Mr. Banderas."[7]
The director cast him in his internationally acclaimed 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Rita Kemply of The Washington Post described Banderas' performance as "warm" and described the film as a "glossy delight."[8] The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased years later, when he starred in Almodóvar's controversial Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love.[5] The breakthrough role helped spur him on to Hollywood.[9] Almodóvar is credited with helping launch Banderas's international career, as he became a regular feature in his films throughout the 1980s.[10]
1990–1999: Hollywood stardom
In 1991, Madonna introduced Banderas to Hollywood. (He was an object of her desires in her pseudodocumentary film of one of her concert tours, Madonna: Truth or Dare.)[11] The following year, still speaking minimal English, he began acting in U.S. films. Despite having to learn all his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician in his first American drama film, The Mambo Kings (1992).[12]Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times described Banderas as giving a "quietly effective job".[13] David Nansen of Newsweek declared, "Banderas had to learn English to play this role, but you wouldn't know it: he plumbs all the nuances of charm and self-pity in Nestor's melancholic soul".[14] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly also praised Banderas' performance writing, "he gives a surprisingly confident and subtle performance as the implosive Nestor".[15]
In 2001, Banderas collaborated with Robert Rodriguez, who cast him in the first three movies of the Spy Kids franchise (2001–2003). He portrayed Gregorio Cortez, a retired OSS agent, alongside Carla Gugino, who played his wife, Ingrid Cortez. Roger Ebert praised the first film, describing it as "giddy with the joy of its invention. It's an exuberant, colorful extravaganza, wall-to-wall with wildly original sets and visual gimmicks, and smart enough to escape the kids film category and play in the mainstream."[25] He also starred in Michael Cristofer's Original Sin alongside Angelina Jolie the same year.
Banderas made his Broadway debut playing Guido Contini in the 2003 revival of Maury Yeston's musical Nine, based on the film 8½, playing the prime role originated by Raul Julia. Ben Brantley, the chief theater critic of The New York Times, wrote that Banderas was "a bona fide matinee idol for the 21st century -- a pocket Adonis who suggests a more sensitive, less menacing variation on the Latin lovers of yore," adding that "he has an appealingly easy stage presence and an agreeable singing voice that shifts, a bit abruptly, between pop whisperiness and Broadway belting."[29] He won both the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Drama Desk Award for Best Actor in a Musical and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.[30] His performance is preserved on the Broadway cast recording released by PS Classics. Later that year, he received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors.[31]
The following year, Banderas portrayed Puss in Boots in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek 2 (2004). Todd McCarthy of Variety praised his performance, writing that he is "deliciously sending up his Zorro persona."[35] The film was an immense box office and critical hit.[36][37] It went on to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[38] Banderas reprised his role in Shrek the Third (2007) and the last film in the Shrek franchise, Shrek Forever After (2010), which helped make the character popular on the family film circuit. In 2005, he reprised his role as Zorro in The Legend of Zorro. In 2006, he starred in Take the Lead, a high-set movie in which he played a ballroom dancing teacher. That year, he directed his second film, El camino de los ingleses, based on the novel by Antonio Soler, and also received the L.A. Latino International Film Festival's "Gabi" Lifetime Achievement Award on October 14.[39] Banderas received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005, the 2,294th person to do so;[40] his star is located on the north side of the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard.[41]
2010–present: Reunion with Almodóvar
Banderas acted in the Woody Allen-directed comedy-drama You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), starring Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, and Naomi Watts. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received mixed reviews.[42] The following year, he starred in the horror thriller The Skin I Live In (2011), which marked the return of Banderas to Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish director who launched his international career. The two had not worked together since 1990 (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!). In The Skin I Live In, he breaks out of the "Latin Lover" mold from his Hollywood work and stars as a calculating revenge-seeking plastic surgeon following the rape of his daughter. According to the Associated Press, Banderas' performance is among his strongest in recent memory.[10] That same year, he reprised his voice role as Puss in Boots, this time as the protagonist of the Shrek spin-off prequel, Puss in Boots. This film reunited Banderas with Salma Hayek for the sixth time.[43] The film received critical acclaim and was a box-office hit.[44][45]
In 2019, Banderas starred in the Spanish film Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria), directed by Pedro Almodóvar.[48] The film centers around an aging film director played by Banderas who has a chronic illness and writer's block as he reflects on his life in flashbacks to his childhood. On May 25, 2019, Banderas won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his role in the film.[49] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised his performance, writing that "Banderas’s melancholic presence and subtle, intricate performance add depth and intensities of feeling... because he draws so flawlessly from Almodóvar."[50] He was later nominated for his first ever Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Pain and Glory and lost to Joaquin Phoenix for his role in Joker (2019).[51][52]
Antonio Banderas has always declared that what makes him happiest is theater. On November 15, 2019, his theater project, the Teatro del Soho CaixaBank,[62] opened its doors in Malaga. It is a creation center dedicated to the production, exhibition and distribution of shows, and training in the different areas of the performing arts.[63][64]
Since spring 2024 he also sponsors a new performing arts school in Malaga, the Sohrlin Andalucía School of Arts. It is located on an old metallurgical factory. Its objective is to become a large stage center in which to design, create and export Andalusian talent to the world.[65]
Banderas is an officer (mayordomo de trono) of a Roman Catholic religious brotherhood in his hometown of Málaga and travels during Holy Week to take part in the processions.[70] although he once described himself as an agnostic in an interview with People magazine in 2006: "I have to recognize that I am agnostic. I don’t believe in any kind of fundamentalism. I prefer to take life in a different way, with a sense of humor. I try to teach my kids to be open. Whatever they believe is fine with me."[71]
About his involvement with Holy Week, he revealed he had rekindled his relationship with Catholicism in 1994 after a period of spiritual search.[72][73]
"There was a moment in my life in which I separated a bit from the Church. I was searching for a spiritual connection in other places, until in 1994, after my brother had a surgery we were very afraid of, in which we could lose him, I realized I should have not searched for so much, that I had had always that connection with the trascendental in front of my face. It also happened in a way which followed our own traditions, which we shouldn't look for in the Buddha, as these characters were right there. In my own neighborhood was that way to connect myself to the trascendental through the Passion of the Christ, until concluding in Resurrection."
In 2021, he described his religious beliefs and Holy Week to El País:[74]
"I live comfortably in the mystery, I'm very doubting, I don't know if agnostic is exactly the word. But I think yes, there is something, although we don't know what is it. The Big Bang, yes, and before the Big Bang, what? Holy Week has many colors, it's a very strange poliedrum. It is related to faith, popular religion and Andalusian idiosyncrasy. It's just the Roman Ides of March: winter dies and spring is born. The Andalusian version is so colourful and merry because everybody knows the guy will resurrect on Sunday. And there is a happy ending."
Relationships
Banderas married Ana Leza [es] in 1987 and divorced her in 1996. He met and began a relationship with American actress Melanie Griffith in 1995 while shooting Two Much.[6][75] They married on May 14, 1996, in London. They have a daughter, Stella del Carmen Banderas (born September 24, 1996), who appeared onscreen with Griffith in Banderas' directorial debut Crazy in Alabama (1999). In 2002, the couple received the Stella Adler Angel Award for their extensive philanthropy. Griffith had a tattoo of Banderas' name on her right arm that has since been removed.[76]
In June 2014, Banderas and Griffith released a statement announcing their intention to divorce "in a loving and friendly manner."[77] According to the petition filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, the couple had "irreconcilable differences" that led to their separation.[78] The divorce became official in December 2015.[79] Despite being divorced, Banderas and Griffith remain close friends. His former stepdaughter Dakota Johnson has stated she considers Banderas part of the family, calling him a "bonus dad."[80][81] As of November 2015, Banderas is dating Nicole Kimpel, a Dutch investment banker.[82]
Health
In 2009, Banderas underwent surgery for a benign tumor in his back.[83] Speaking at the Málaga Film Festival in March 2017, Banderas revealed he had suffered a heart attack on January 26, 2017, but said it "wasn't serious and hasn't caused any damages." Following that incident, he underwent heart surgery to insert three stents into his arteries.[84] In a Fresh Air interview in September 2019, he recalled it as being life-changing. He said, "It just gave me a perspective of who I was, and it just made the important things [go to] the surface. When I say this, people may just think that I'm crazy, but it's one of the best things that ever happened in my life."[85]
Business ventures
He has invested some of his film earnings in Andalusian products, which he promotes in Spain and the US. He owns 50% of a winery in Villalba de Duero, Burgos, Spain, called Anta Banderas, which produces red and rosé wines.[86]
He performed a voice-over for an animated bee, which can be seen in the United States in television commercials for Nasonex,[87] an allergy medication, and was seen in the 2007 Christmas advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer, a British retailer.[88]
He is a veteran of the perfume industry. The actor has been working with fragrance and beauty multinational company Puig for over ten years, becoming one of the brand's most successful representatives. Banderas and Puig have successfully promoted a number of fragrances so far: Diavolo, Diavolo for Women, Mediterraneo, Spirit, and Spirit for Women. After the success of Antonio for Men and Blue Seduction for Men in 2007, he launched his latest, Blue Seduction for Women, the following year.[89]
^"Antonio Banderas". Biography.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
^ ab"The mother of ... Antonio Banderas". El Mundo. Spain. n.d. Archived from the original on 18 October 2000. Retrieved 26 March 2017. Ana Banderas Gallego [es la madre de] José Antonio Domínguez Banderas.... Ha sido profesora de educación primaria en distintos colegios. Casada con José Domínguez Prieto, es madre de dos hijos: Antonio y Francisco Javier. / Ana Banderas Gallego [is the mother of] José Antonio Domínguez Banderas.... She has been a teacher of primary education in different schools. ... Married to José Domínguez Prieto, she is the mother of two children: Antonio and Francisco Javier.