Antonio Banderas Quotations

I remember in 'Law of Desire,' where I played a homosexual, that people were more upset that I kissed a man on the mouth than I killed a man. It's interesting to see how people can pardon you for murdering a man, but they can't pardon you for kissing one.

The recycling in my house was imposed by my kids.

If you call a cat, he may not come. Which doesn't happen with dogs. They're different types of animals. Cats are very sexy I think too in the way they move.

Cats are very independent animals. They're very sexy, if you want. Dogs are different. They're familiar. They're obedient. You call a cat, you go, 'Cat, come here.' He doesn't come to you unless you have something in your hand that he thinks might be food. They're very free animals, and I like that.

The man who doesn't want anything is invincible.

Everything changes as you get older - your mind, your body, the way you view the world.

Cinema has opened a world of possibilities up for me.

I wouldn't want my daughters to date a guy like me. I was dangerous around women in my twenties. I'm terrified that they might end up with someone like me.

This may sound a little harsh, but I don't care about my career. Really, I don't like actors who are always planning what they're going to do next or always worrying about doing something that will go against the image they've created. To me, that's almost like an attack of narcissism.

I think Shrek makes an effect in older people. And there are many things in the movie that you saw that are not for kids. Kids would not understand certain things.

I completely take on the risk, the poker game, which being an artist means, and I'm going to try to make a film which honestly reflects what I have in my head.

I've always been an optimistic guy, to tell you the truth.

I'm a complete hypochondriac. If my heart starts beating a little faster than normal, I think I'm having an attack.

I mean, the Constitution of this country was written 200 years ago. The house I was living in in Madrid is 350 years old! America is still a project, and you guys are working on it and bringing new things to it every day. That is beautiful to watch.

I am lucky, that is all. Lucky because there are a lot of people - producers, directors, people who buy tickets - who put confidence in me.

Up until the time I was 31 years old, in Spain, I still didn't know how I was going to pay the rent.

I like going everywhere. And I love starting new things.

It was an honor and privilege to arrive to this country 16 years ago with almost no money in my pocket. A lot has happened since then.

I drink a bucket of white tea in the morning. I read about this tea of the Emperor of China, which is supposedly the tea of eternal youth. It's called Silver Needle. It's unbelievably expensive, but I get it on the Web.

In my personal life, I am very contemplative.

Sometimes I have wrinkles, in the morning. It depends on what kind of night that I had. I accept myself and the way that I am growing older. I have eye bags and some people have proposed to me to take them out but I said no.

When you go to the movie theater and the opening of this movie and you see the kids just cracking up with a character you are giving your voice to, you get goose bumps. It's so beautiful.

I don't think there is a guy that played more gay characters than I have done in my life.

I think we are realising that governments can't govern us any more.

There's something happening in the world that didn't happen before. We are acting like one big brain.

I always feel that art in general and acting in particular should make the audience a little uncomfortable, to slap them and wake them up.

I cry a lot, you know. Which is very difficult for a man to recognise, but I do. I cry in movies, you know, just watching movies.

I don't believe in any kind of fundamentalism.

I get caught up in my bubble of reading, writing, or music.

I like flesh. I do! Something to hold.

I love my country. And I would have to renounce my Spanish citizenship to become a U.S. Citizen.

I think the problems with being older come when your body cannot do what your mind wants. Then, Houston, we have a problem.

I've never liked watching real-life couples play couples onscreen or onstage. It takes me out of the story.

I love the diversity of America. I love the plain, normal sense of humor Americans have. It is not wicked, like in some countries. And I also love how new America is.

I wake up every morning, look in the mirror and ask, 'Am I a sex symbol?' Then I go back to bed again. It's stupid to think that way.

I've never worried about what audiences would accept or had a game plan regarding the career. I never had an idea of how I should look to my fans or anybody else.

If bad things are going to be said about me, I have to bear that. If I don't understand that it's part of being in show business, then I'd better go work in a bank.

Melanie is more of a disciplinarian with the little girl than me, probably because it's my first baby. She gets everything easy from Papa. I am more weak. She takes advantage of me.

You see a woman, 22 years old, going out with a guy over 60 - and it's kind of natural. But if it happens in the opposite direction everyone says, 'What is going on there?

Listen, I think movies serve many different purposes, from those movies that are frivolous and just an entertainment, to movies that just go to exploring the complexities of the human soul. Everything is valid if it's done with honesty and dignity, and I actually do both of those types of movies in my career.

I couldn't be with someone who is depressed all the time.

I have to recognize that I am agnostic.

It's a character that I always found really likable. I'm fond of Zorro because he was a popular figure who worked for the people.

The only time you actually are a spectator of your own work is the day you read the script.

There are some movies that I would like to forget, for the rest of my life. But even those movies teach me things.

I'm still a promising actor. It's better to be climbing even if you have a lot of falls than to be descending. Maybe that's kept me young. I haven't gotten to any peak yet.

Characters don't belong to anyone, not even the person who plays them.

Hollywood is a very strong machine that needs, and in... especially with female actors, fresh flesh. It's that cruel. But that's the way it is.

I have a fantastic studio in my home, and it's my biggest toy. I have about a half a million dollars worth of musical equipment in my house.

There are some movies that I would like to forget, for the rest of my life - really! But even those movies that I'd like to forget teach me things.

When I do a political movie, I do a political movie.

When you work in a different language you are not so attached to the words.

As an actor, when you encounter a psychopathic personality, you naturally want to make him 'bigger than life,' as the Americans say.

I don't like to over-intellectualize scenes that are working. I tend to think when you do that you may lose it.

We are now integrated into American society and I don't like the word fashionable, because fashionable means that it's going to pass. It's not like that anymore.

I often feel very guilty because of the time that I spend outside of my home and the little time that sometimes I have for my kids.

I think that comedy is one of the more serious things that you can do in our day, especially in the world that we're living in.

I try to teach my kids to be open.

I've done many different movies in many different contexts.

Making movies is difficult and you get disorientated sometimes - even when you're working with fantastic talent.

One thing I have clear is that I don't want to work for money anymore.

When you're feeling very comfortable with an actor, you are doing nothing.

You have to work with people you really love.

I do yoga every morning, then I run for half an hour and take a sauna.

I did my first movie, 'The Mambo Kings,' in America without speaking the language. I learned the lines phonetically. I had an interpreter actually just to understand directions from my director.

I'm not such a big star. I am just a little planet. In Spain, people don't put so much attention on the star system. But here in America, I can feel it. Mostly, people are very, very nice. But there are also a bunch of fanatics behind the stars.

A couple of years after I arrived in Hollywood, everything that was Latino was fashionable, and years after, my thought is that we're not fashionable anymore. We're here to stay.

Always when you go to a new country and they teach you bad words, you just say them without knowing the value and people look at you because you didn't know that value of them.

I used to be scared of women. When I was very young they terrified me, but discovering the female universe was incredible and still is to this day, as you never stop learning about them.

Picasso is a character that has pursued me for a long time and I always rejected. He deserves a lot of respect because I am from Malaga, and I was born four blocks from where he was born.

Whatever happens in my life from now on, I know the day I finally die - the final act of my script - people will always make references to the work I've done with Almodovar.

But at the same time he's more elegant, ... You've got a sly thing going with him that I like. He's imperfect, a little bit clumsy, and jealous and drunk. All of that humanizes the character and makes him very approachable. Everybody in the audience can recognize a little bit of themselves in him; and then everybody roots for you to be the guy he's supposed to be. That's the part of the movie I enjoy the most, all the comedy.

He fights with the traditional Spanish weapon, the sword, and disdains the impersonal Anglo-Saxon weapon, the gun.

Melanie was on the payroll for the whole summer but the horse handlers wouldn't pay her more than 25 dollars a day for working out the horses, ... But she loves horses.

I think it actually will be an interesting play. I think it is a very smart proposal for theater.

I was playing with a soccer team in Spain until I broke my foot-badly. That's when I started seriously getting into acting.

Expectation is the mother of all frustration.

I'm in my 60s now, and just running almost 50 meters with explosives going on, it was kind of like, "Oh, my god! What am I doing here?"

[Pablo]Picasso was born in my hometown, in Málaga, so I have this of strange connection with his persona and with what he did. He left Málaga, practically at the same time and age that I did.

I had an idea and I wanted just to make it work. And I am never, ever secure on the set that what I am doing is going to translate to the screen. It never changes.

If you become very self-conscious about what you are doing, you kill. You kill the character. Then it doesn't work. You have to come from a sincere place. And you don't think too much. I don't go to the hotel and I start thinking what am I going to say tomorrow and start writing things down.

My Spanish is getting a little bit loose. Sometimes I go to Spain and after I've been talking with my folks for a while... you start changing the verb for the adjective, for example, which is a common thing between Spanish and English. I change that sometimes but after a couple days there, boom, I'm back.

I discovered very soon, especially for movies, because I started in theater, that every director has his own universe. You have to be free enough to try to understand what he wants from you. Especially when that director has a tremendous personality. And I'm talking about people like Pedro Almodovar and Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen. And you have to adapt. If you don't adapt to them, you are off the thing.

This girl said "Yes" when I wasn't ready. I kissed her lightly and got so dizzy I had to sit down.

No, obviously, the time goes by, the English gets better. Ever since I met Melanie, that was almost nine years ago now, you have to just speak the language continuously, hone every word. So, and the proof for me of that, was actually in theater. It has to be two hours and 45 minutes on the stage speaking a language that is not your language, and singing.

If they had offered me James Bond, I probably couldn't have gone to England anymore in my life. James Bond with an accent? That would have been something.

It is very difficult to follow your own method all the time because you may crash against some directors who want from you something different. Trying to understand the material, who you're working with, and how can you fit in there. That is my approach.

Im now projecting my career in a totally different direction. I am going to work less-way less. And I want to work better. I want to direct again, I want to do more theatre, and I want to do exactly those movies that I want to do.

It's about paying attention to the little things, the details... Constantly rediscovering your partner, knowing there's a way out of any crisis.

I divide my time badly.

First of all, we have exactly the opposite type of audiences, for obvious reasons. So the competition is not going to be between the movies. I wish Dakota the best, not only because of this movie. I know the expectations of these movies are enormous but we know-every member of the family, brother, sister, real father-that she's a good actress.”

Is it a man walking on the beach, winking at the girls and looking for going to bed? Is it someone who wears a lot of gold chains and rings and sits at the bar? Because this is not me! I am very, very Latin, but not so much lover.

You have to be in good shape, basically. And then, you have to have a certain craziness, if you're going to do some of the action things.

There were many generations of Latino people coming to this country, coming from difficult political or social situations in their own countries, and they worked very hard to have their kids go to universities. Well, those kids came out and they are now doctors and architects, or they are on the Supreme Court. That has a reflection in Hollywood. So, we are actually very proud that our characters are Latinos, and I think it's good for diversity and cultural interaction.

Every time, I reaffirm in myself that the more comfortable you are, the less you are creating. You have to feel a little bit of pain in the creation.

I suppose that I am ambitious.

Movies serve many purposes, and I've visited many of those genres, from the most light, frivolous comedy that is just trying to make you laugh, to movies that explore the most complicated side of the human soul. As an actor, I play all of those things, and I still like it.

Sometimes I am just playing the character. I will move out of the way of the microphone, and they will have to tell me. Because I am moving around a lot. I am performing the cat. The animators look for that material, to see if they can put it back into the movie.

Films should be for everybody.

It is just a very freaky experience when you go to the movie theater and you see it for the first time. In close-up you see those eyes. There are little touches here and there that I recognize as myself. The process is fun.