T hanks to Paramount Pictures I was lucky enough to attend the Sydney Red Carpet Premiere of the excellent ‘PUSS IN BOOTS.’ I got the chance to interview Antonio Banderas – and even though I didn’t get a chance to discuss the film with him, I was able to get him to talk about the filmmaking process and get his advice for young filmmakers: Check out his amazing answer:
Q: Hi Antonio, it’s great to meet you!
A: And to you too!
Q: You are such an icon to me; particularly your work with Robert Rodriguez and Pedro Almodavar…
A: Yes, thank you.
Q: I’d just like to know what advice you’ve picked up from them; and your own direction that you can offer to others?
A: Wooph! For Almodovar I could be talking to you here for hours! For hours! Especially after this year after the many, many films we’ve done together. He’s taught me a very important lesson: to walk in that territory is where creation really is, and that can be as exiting as it is painful.
Sometimes working with Almodavar is difficult; and thank God! Because when you arrive – in a career like mine you accumulate things – as 33 years as a professional you accumulate with those things. Like a backpack filled with all those things. You put all of that out on the table when you start rehearsing with Pedro, and he takes those things and throws them out the window!
And then you have to start from zero. The first thing that he’ll say to you is “If I’m going to reinvent myself; then you are going to have to reinvent yourself too.” He says “I didn’t call you because of all the films that we did in the eighties, but because I want to do something new.” So that is just the tip of the pyramids in what I could be talking to you with about Pedro Almodovar.
Then with Robert Rodriguez, they are totally different directors! But they have something in common; they are both very personal. Like when you see two minutes of any of those directors’s movies; immeadiately you recognize them. They are personal.
And that in our time; in which it’s all about the wins and the losses; about picking apart the pig, and finding what’s edible; that is actually priceless.
Q: Thank you so very much Antonio.
A: You are very welcome!??Q: Good luck with the movie!
A: Thank you!
