From the swashbuckling Zorro to the gunslinging mariachi, Antonio Banderas has been a household
name for decades.
He remained a constant on our screens over the years, reprising the role of Zorro and
joining big budget franchises in Shrek and Spy Kids.
But recently, his status as a genuine A-lister has come into question.
We don't really hear much from Banderas nowadays, and here's why.
Typecast
Although Banderas took on some pretty varied roles in his early acting days in Spain, his
transition to Hollywood almost immediately pigeonholed him as the Latin lover with the
sensual voice.
Even his actions scenes feel like he might just start getting sexy at any minute.
"Not bad."
"Not bad at all."
No matter how much makeup you put on his face or how many things are exploding, Antonio
Banderas is never more than one tango away from taking you to bed.
It's a tag that's followed him his entire career, even though he's often tried to shake
the typecasting with movies like Assassins, The 13th Warrior, and 2011's The Skin I Live
In, in which he played a deranged surgeon.
Unfortunately, critics haven't been particularly kind to Banderas' latest work.
Of the last ten Antonio Banderas movies reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes, eight of them have scores
of less than 50 percent.
In 2014, he turned up in The Expendables 3 looking to work on his action chops…
...but the film was bashed by critics, and the verdict was just as bad when Banderas
took on the lead role in Automata later that year.
In their review of the apocalyptic sci-fi film, The Wrap said that Banderas was "all
wrong" for the part, criticizing him for being "shouty where he should be stern, confused
where he should be clued in."
Franchise player
When Antonio Banderas signed on to play Puss in Boots in Shrek 2 in 2004, he probably had
no idea how popular the character would become.
He showed up again in two more Shrek sequels and no less than five animated specials, not
to mention his own spin-off prequel in 2011.
It grossed over half a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, but eventually the
franchise was bound to run out of steam.
Similarly, Spy Kids finally fizzled, and Robert Rodriguez's "Mexico Trilogy" reached its conclusion
with Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
Antonio Banderas has plenty of other solid film credits, but for nearly a decade, his
acting work rested heavily on franchises that ultimately reached their end.
But no matter what, Banderas always has a fallback:
"You can make anything sound sexy."
"Really?"
"Okay?
And seductive."
Side gigs
Since 1997, Antonio Banderas has been creating his own line of men's fragrances alongside
Spanish fashion and cosmetics giant Puig.
In 2015, Banderas also announced that he had signed up as a student at the famous London
fashion school Central St. Martins.
He told the school publication, "I’m going to continue doing movies and producing, and
I want to direct more – but there were other things in my life that I was interested in."
What were those things?
If you guessed 'capes,' you'd be… yeah, you'd be right.
Antonio Banderas wants to make capes.
"Zorro!
The legend has returned!"
On top of his fragrance and fashion side gigs, Banderas is also a United Nations Development
Program Goodwill Ambassador and he has his own foundation, Tears and Favors, which provides
support to cancer patients.
In other words, we don't see him so much any more because he's super busy with his commitments
away from Hollywood.
Family time
In 2014, Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas released a joint statement confirming that
they were bringing their near-two decades of marriage to a close.
Banderas saw this as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf and has been busy spending
more time with his family.
He told E! News:
"My life changed very much during the last two years, personal reasons.
The possibility of reinventing myself was there, and so I said 'Probably this is the
moment that I can do this.'"
Banderas also revealed that both his step-daughter Dakota Johnson and his biological daughter
Stella helped him get through the process.
"I told my kids sometimes, but in fact, the reality is I learned from them more.
They were not very obedient, but I learn from them."
Leaving Hollywood
In 2015, Banderas left the bright lights of Hollywood for the UK countryside.
He currently lives with his Dutch girlfriend Nicole Kempel in a tailor-made eco-mansion
that set him back more than $3 million.
Looking back, it's hardly a surprise that Banderas chose to leave the States, as a few
years earlier he and his then-wife Melanie Griffith tried to buy an apartment in world
famous New York apartment building "The Dakota" only to be turned away because Banderas was
Hispanic, according to a lawsuit.
The suit suggested that the board made cruel jokes about Banderas upon receiving his application,
claiming he wanted a first floor apartment so it would be easier to buy drugs off the
street.
Health concerns
In January 2017, Banderas was rushed to a hospital near his home in England after suffering
"agonizing" pain in his chest during a workout.
The Spanish star initially dismissed the incident as an "episode" and tweeted a photo of himself
and girlfriend Nicole Kempel with the caption "Enjoying nature after a little startle."
He later confirmed that it was indeed a heart attack, and that he had to go under the knife
to fix the problem.
"It was a benign attack.
It hasn't caused a-ny permanent damage and now I'm in a recovery period.
It's something that happens every day to a lot of people.
I didn't hide it, but I didn't want it to receive more importance than those suffered
by other people."
While that's great news, studio execs may think twice before casting him in long-term
roles, which is a real shame for both the actor and his fans alike.
What's next?
One reason that Banderas chose to move out of the spotlight was to focus on his writing.
He told The Sunday Times,
"I am not a party person anymore so I have the space and peace to write and really get
inside my own head.
I'm working on several scripts."
Whether any of the screenplays he is currently writing will come to fruition is anyone's
guess, but what we do know is that Banderas hasn't given up the ghost on acting quite
yet.
He'll star alongside Adrien Brody and John Malkovich in a "Reservoir Dogs-style thriller"
called Unchained, play an aging rock star in the action comedy Salty, and headling the
upcoming revenge thriller Stoic.
He might have been out of the picture for a while, but Banderas looks like he has enough
left in the tank for a few more rolls of the dice.
And if that doesn't work, there's always capes!
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