Antonio Banderas

“Is it a man walking on the beach, winking at the girls and looking for going to bed? Is it someone who wears a lot of gold chains and rings and sits at the bar? Because this is not me! I am very, very Latin, but not so much lover.”

Antonio Banderas Bio

Jose Antonio Banderas was born on 10 August 1960, in Malaga - Spain. His name Jose comes from his father and Antonio from his mother's beloved brother.
His father was a policeman and his mother a teacher. Banderas starting acting in theater and television in Madrid. Before his sad experience in soccer life, when he broked his leg at the age of 14, Antonio though seriously in becoming an actor. So he enrolled in drama classes without his parents permission, and putted together a crew of young thespians to form an acting troupe.
With his new formed drama troupe he went in Spain's important cities and made shows right on the streets. In 1981 he moved to Madrid and won a place as an ensemble member of the esteemed National Theater of Spain. Being a struggling young actor he also worked as a waiter and took small modeling jobs to provide for himself.

Antonio succeeded in stepping forward in the acting career, when he was introduced to Pedro Almodovar, a young and promising film director. So they joined forces, and together they made it right to the top with the movie "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". This was Antonio's Breakthrough to succeed in international movie industry.

Acting Carreer

After his huge success that he had with the movie "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", he was approached by Arne Glimcher, who offered him a role in his movie "The Mambo Kings" (1992), despite the fact that Antonio wasn't so well sure on his abilities of an english speaker. So because of that Antonio was determined to conquer the language barrier and learned all his lines phonetically.

He then tooked lessons at a Berlitz school, and with a huge motivation, and a frantic desire to learn and to succeed, he delivered a stunningly deep rendering of his lines that won him high praise for his performances.

His next big role was as Miguel Alvarez, only a little role, in the movie "Philadelphia", starring along Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in leading roles. After this excellent, Oscar winning movie, came the big roles for Antonio. So they were: "House of the Spirits" (1993), "Interview with the Vampire" (1994), "Four Rooms" (1995), and in the same year, Assasins.

“There are some movies that I would like to forget, for the rest of my life. But even those movies teach me things.”

“I've never worried about what audiences would accept or had a game plan regarding the career. I never had an idea of how I should look to my fans or anybody else.”


Antonio and Music

His great release as a singer and a dancer too was the movie "Desperado" playing along Salma Hayek in what seems to be the role that made him famous.
Later he showed again his excellent talent in the Oscar Award Winning movie "Evita" (1996), playing the role of Che Guevara. In "Evita" Antonio starred along with Madonna, being not the first movie in which he shared the cast with, another one was right a year ago in the comedy "Four Rooms". Soon, he started to be approached by movie directors only by his great talent as a singer and dancer too.

Vital Stats - Antonio Banderas
Starred in the films Shrek, Th Legend of Zorro, Champion and Summer Rain, Thick as Thieves.
Birth Name: Jose Antonio Dominguez Banderas
Birth Place: Malaga, Spain
Eye color: Brown
Height: 5' 8 1/2"
Nickname: Breva (which translated from spanish means fig)
Education: School of Dramatic Art (Málaga, Spain)
Family: Melanie Griffith (spouse), Stell Banderas (daughter), Ana Leza (ex-wife), Francisco (brother), Alexander Bauer (stepson), Dakota Johnson (stepdaughter)
Resides in: Los Angeles, California
Religious affiliations:
Political affiliations: Banderas doesn't make his political affiliation public, but in return he expresses his opinions about political life after the releasing of American production "Crazy in Alabama", a political movie based on the African-American struggle for freedom and civil rights.

'I understand what it's like to live in a restrictive society, and I wanted to articulate that in a film.''
--- Antonio Banderas

Source from : http://www.flixster.com/actor/antonio-banderas