Banderas: Aches & pains

Los Angeles, Nov. 4: Antonio Banderas has yet to read a single review of his latest action-adventure film, The Legend of Zorro, a family-friendly, swashbuckling film whose “imperfect”, “clumsy” and “goofy” central character, the actor warns, “will probably not be loved by acting lovers”.

“If you watch Ingmar Bergman, and only Ingmar Bergman, you’re probably going to hate the movie,” he confesses. Still, the actor is eager to let the world know he’s completely happy about one aspect of the project.

“I survived it,” says Banderas, who, in a telephone interview, calls the film “probably the toughest thing I’ve done in my life”.

This, coming from a man who has already made one stunt-heavy film about the acrobatic, horseback-riding swordsman (1998’s The Mask of Zorro), sandwiched between two physically demanding performances as the guitar-playing gunslinger known as El Mariachi for Robert Rodriguez, a director about whom Banderas says, “I would go to hell with him if necessary”. Not to mention the five movies under filmmaker and notorious control freak Pedro Almodovar.

Banderas recalls once making the mistake of telling Almodovar that he had an idea. “‘No, no, no, no,’ he said. ‘You don’t have the ideas. I do.’ With Pedro, you have to allow him to play with you like a pen, and he is the writer.”

So what was so much harder this time than the last Zorro?

“For one thing, I’m seven years older, and you have to confront that,” says the actor, who, unlike his stunt double, did not suffer any broken bones during the filming ? just the cuts, bumps, bruises and back pain of a 45-year-old who isn’t used to jumping on and off horses all day. “The last month was almost traumatic,” he continues, citing the heat, his mask’s limited visibility, the unwieldiness of the caped costume and the inherent risks involved in six extras swinging swords at a groggy actor at the crack of dawn as reason enough to be grateful that the job is finished.

“Of course,” he laughs, “if there’s a good result, and people like the film, you quickly forget about all that.”

Not that he’s thinking about taking another leap into Zorro’s saddle anytime soon.