Time was right for Banderas to play Picasso
PASADENA, CALIF. — Spanish actor Antonio Banderas loves a mystery. And he couldn’t find a puzzle more suited to him than his latest project. Banderas is playing artist Pablo Picasso in National Geographic’s 10-part continuation of its “Genius” series, which premières Tuesday at 9 p.m.
“We are talking about an extraordinary, capable, skilful guy,” says Banderas.
“His personal life is perfect to dramatize because it’s very complex. For me, it’s a mystery. And I am not trying to unplug the mystery.
“Actually, I love to be part of it, and probably at the end of the show, we are not going to have an explanation of why he did this or that, or he didn’t do this, or he didn’t say that. We are going to continue being in that mystery. But that is the point. That is the point of his extraordinary art. That is actually what makes the whole entire project, for me, unbelievably exciting.”
Banderas, who goes grey and bald for the role, says conjuring such a vivid portrayal isn’t a one-man job. “You do the character with all the forces — human forces — that you have around, and those are fellow actors, and those are the makeup artists, and they are the cinematographer and directors, and everybody who is involved. We are in the same boat trying to get to the same objective and do the same thing ... It has been one of the most extraordinary, exciting projects that I have ever done in my life.”
Not only does he share a Spanish heritage with Picasso, he was also born in Malaga, the same town as the celebrated artist. “Picasso has been a very important figure in my life,” says the 57-year-old.
“You have to think when I was going to school, when I was a little kid with the hand of my mother, we always cross in front of Picasso’s house where Picasso was born.
“And I am talking about a time in Spain in which we didn’t have too many international heroes. So Picasso trespassed that barrier at a time in which we were pretty much isolated by the dictatorship that we were living in with Francisco Franco in power,” he recalls.
“He was bigger than Franco, and his shadow was coming to Spain. So I grew up with this projection of this huge artist who was capable to actually make the people all around the world fall in love with his art, and he was (from) my hometown, and I was able to just see the house where he was born. That was very important for me.”
Actually, Banderas, who was so memorable in films like “The Mask of Zorro,” “Desperado” and four “Spy Kids” movies, has been offered the role of Picasso several times before. He always turned them down. Now he says, the timing was ideal.
“I said no before because it was a big sense of responsibility that it came to me that, for whatever reason, I didn’t want to accept in other times of my life. But this is the right time. It came with great scripts, with seriousness, with National Geographic, which was giving the whole entire project all the facts that we needed to create the complexity of a character like this, so that’s what we are doing.”
When Banderas first arrived in the United States, he was already a big star in the Latin community and had made five movies with well-known director Pedro Almodóvar. “When I came to America, I didn’t have in the mind the idea of developing a career in America,” he says.
“In fact, I went back to Spain and worked a while there. Then I started going back and forth. Then Melanie (Griffith, who became his second wife) came along. She had two kids. They had fathers. Somebody had to make a decision. I didn’t like the idea of having the kids travel 50,000 miles, all around the world in 10 weeks, so that’s why I moved to America. It was more a personal reason than a professional.”
Banderas’ self-deprecating charisma soon attracted such avid attention in the States that he became the darling of the fanzines and paparazzi.
But he’s not interested in being a one-note hottie. Joking, he describes his days as “limos, very expensive suits and champagne every morning.”
“I don’t believe in the parallel lives of being an actor,” he sighs. “What I believe in is just what I was searching for many years, and it starts when someone is telling you ‘action’ and when someone is telling you ‘cut.’ That’s the point. That’s what I’ve been working my whole life to be in. All these parallel lives, this is a dangerous lie,” he shakes his head.
“If you play that game, and you want to appear a star 24 hours a day, first you have to be brilliant. And to be brilliant 24 hours a day is work. And I am not brilliant 24 hours a day.”