‘I remember having the heart attack and thinking: “Really? I’m going to finish like this?”’

theatre in Malaga.

“I love to see young people getting on the stage and having more opportunities in my hometown than I had. I just choose the most perfect, romantic way to ruin myself – buying a theatre.

“You have no idea how complex the thing was. So if you see me in the next two years doing any stupid movies, it’s to pay for the theatre,” he says laughing.

Banderas and Griffith have a daughter, Stella del Carmen Banderas, and he has two stepchildren, Fifty Shades Of Grey star Dakota Johnson, 26, and Alexander Bauer, 30, Griffith’s children by her two earlier marriages.

The couple divorced in December 2015 and Banderas moved to Britain and set up home,

AND after selling the sprawling, haciendastyle home in Los Angeles he shared with Griffith - which had seven bedrooms, a recording studio, fitness centre and courtyard pool - for £15million, Banderas seems happy to have downsized.

“This house gives me the simplicity and freedom I need in my life at the moment,” he said recently.

“I find Surrey magical. I am not a party person any more. I go cycling in the woods, and everyone in Cobham, Weybridge and Esher is incredibly friendly. Above all, I am surrounded by nature. I love watching the deer and foxes that come to my garden.”

Later this year, audiences will see Banderas in a Steven Soderbergh movie about the Panama Papers offshore finance industry scandal called The Laundromat, starring Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman. “She’s not just an amazing actor,” he says of Streep. “We all know that, but as a person she’s a ten. She’s a humble human being, fun to play with and Gary Oldman too. Both of them.”