The 65-year-old reflected on his entry into Hollywood after building his career with roles in Spanish films.

Antonio Banderas says Hollywood execs told him he’d only play bad guys ‘like the Blacks and Hispanics’

The 65-year-old reflected on his entry into Hollywood after building his career with roles in Spanish films.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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March 27, 2026 3:41 p.m. ET

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Antonio Banderas attends the 43rd Torino Film Festival on Nov. 22, 2025. Credit:

Daniele Venturelli/Getty

Antonio Banderas has come a long way since he made his Hollywood debut in 1992's *The Mambo Kings*, but he still remembers the journey it took to become the Oscar-nominated movie star that he is.

While reflecting on his career in a recent interview with *The Times*, the 65-year-old recalled believing that Hollywood was "off limits to Spaniards," and having the thought reinforced by the industry's executives. He told the outlet that when arriving in America, he was told that as a Spanish actor he would only make his mark by playing villains in Hollywood.

"They said, you are here, like the Blacks and the Hispanics, to play the bad guys," he claimed. "The problem was a few years later I had a mask, hat, sword and cape and the bad guy was Captain Love, who was blond and had blue eyes. Even more important is *Puss in Boots*, because it's for young kids. They see a cat that has a Spanish, even an Andalusian accent and he's a good guy."

Antonio Banderas attends 'Godspell' premiere on Jan. 22, 2026.

Carlos Alvarez/Getty

Before Banderas starred in *Mambo Kings*, he was a regular player in the films of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar. He made his screen debut in the filmmaker's 1982 feature *Labyrinth of Passion*, then went on to star in four more films for Almodovar.

After successfully transitioning to Hollywood, Banderas starred in a string of American movies, including *Philadelphia* (1993), *Interview With the Vampire* (1994), *Desperado* (1995), *Evita* (1996), *The Mask of Zorro* (1998), and the *Spy Kids* trilogy. In 2003, he was nominated for a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for the Broadway revival of *Nine*.

"I didn't speak English, but little by little I made a career for myself there. I later married an American woman [Melanie Griffith] and my life changed, my insecurities disappeared," Banderas told *The Times*.

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It was a heart attack in 2017 that turned the actor's life completely around. His harrowing health scare served as "a really serious warning," he told the outlet. "It changed the way I look at life."

"I thought I was going to die, and it made me understand life in a deeper, more complex way," he said. "I detached from things that are not important any more —the car, and this and that — and then I just put my attention in family, friends and in recovering... well, the essence of why I became an actor."

Antonio Banderas as Zorro in 'The Mask of Zorro'.

Banderas chose to move back to his home city of Málaga, Spain, where he currently lives in the city's historic center with his longtime girlfriend Nicole Kimpel, whom he started dating in 2014 following his divorce from Griffith — with whom he shares daughter Stella Banderas, now 29.

He also returned to his theater roots by buying a not-for-profit theatre in Malaga with which he hopes to chip away at Spain's "huge inferiority complex."

"Faced with death, it made me look back and realize that I am, in fact, a theatre actor," the actor added. And of his theatre, Teatro del Soho, Banderas said it fulfills his passions in a way that Hollywood never did, "I have never been so happy. It keeps me in touch with my roots, my neighborhood, my people. I haven't lost that connection over the years. Quite the opposite."

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Source: “EW Movie”