Antonio Banderas: It's important for kids to see diverse heroes on screen

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish star Antonio Banderas says it’s “very important” for kids to see diverse heroes on screen, after warnings of being typecast when his career launched in the US.

Known for his roles in Zorro, Desperado, and SpyKids, Banderas realises Puss In Boots could be the Spanish hero that many generations didn’t get to see.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is in cinemas from 3 February.

Video transcript

JASMINE VALENTINE: Do you feel like the fan base has grown up with you? Like do you ever get asked like, Oh are you Puss in Boots, in like a really strange, unpredictable place?

ANTONIO BANDERAS: Yeah definitely. Some people sometimes they are interviewing me and they are 27 years old, they were seven years when I did my first Puss In Boots.

JASMINE VALENTINE: Yeah.

ANTONIO BANDERAS: So yeah, they have been just growing with the character to. They have been taken to the movies with their parents when they were, say 8, 9, 10 years old. So yeah, I know that-- Yeah, this character has been in five movies and a-- yeah, you could say impacting a whole entire generation.

JASMINE VALENTINE: We also see you reunite with Salma in The Last Wish. What was that like? Did this feel like the right time to do that?

ANTONIO BANDERAS: Well, you know I mean, Salma and I we're friends for a long time. We almost did parallel careers in American because when she did Desperado, I already had a career in Europe with Pedro Almodovar and [INAUDIBLE] and I did a couple of things in America.

But I was just very recently arrived there. And the same room she was just coming from Mexico, from [INAUDIBLE] She knew Robert Rodriguez who put us together and then boom! Desperado was a movie that was seen all around the world massively. And so she became a star. And then we work also in Freedom and we did a second part for Desperado and then the first person, which came out.

So we became friends very early in our careers, in our life. So there is not only a professional relationship with her. She's my friend and I love her and then playing with her is fun. Because she's really feisty and you know she loves to fight a lot. And I just love that.

And we could incorporate that in the movie because she's a little bit hectic in some parts, in a way. And I like that. And I like that she's always complaining in a good way. She very-- being very critical. We've an eye for everything, you know she got an eye that she just don't see what is just in the film but she does get a lot of layers into.