Banderas joins filming at Alicante castle
Road to Bethlehem ‘as if you had never heard it before’, promises production company
SPANISH movie star Antonio Banderas was filming in Alicante last week for the musical ‘Road to Bethlehem’, an international production involving 240 people, including cast and technicians.
Santa Bárbara castle was the location for the shoot and it reopened to the public on Monday with its new midseason timetable of 10.00 to 20.00.
Mayor Luis Barcala and his deputy, Mari Carmen Sánchez issued a joint statement that the presence of Banderas was ‘a big pat on the back for the growing appeal of Alicante as an attractive destination for the film industry and national and international series’.
The production has 120 local residents as extras, plus around 30 people from Alicante working on the sets, filming, logistics and catering.
Banderas plays Herod in this movie, which tells the
story of the birth of Jesus as a musical for all the family.
The principal cast also includes Fiona Palomo as the Virgin Mary, and Milo Manheim as Joseph, as well as British actor/comedian Omid Djalili as Melchior.
This will be the directorial debut of Adam Anders, the producer of the musical The Prom with Meryl Streep and the TV series Glee.
Alan Powell of production company Monarch Media promised the skill of Anders, who has also co-written the script, would deliver a fresh and contemporary take on this well-known story, ‘as if you had never heard it before’.
Actor and director Antonio Banderas starred in many Pedro Almodóvar films, as well as Hollywood movies such as Philadelphia, Interview with the Vampire, Desperado, Assassins, Evita and The Mask of Zorro.
For the 2019 film Pain and Glory, Banderas earned various accolades for best actor including the Cannes Film Festival Award and Spain’s Goya Award.