Antonio Banderas Quotes

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

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

I don't know, if I had the secret recipe that I actually could give everybody, I think it has to do very much with believing in yourself and giving time. Giving time to each member of the family.

As much as you know it, and you know the method, you can pretty much do what you want. No idea is going to be shot down. You just put it in the garbage later. You have to say the lines in many different ways. So they have a lot of material to work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 like flesh. I do! Something to hold.

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

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.

I think I am good in the department of body language and fighting, and stuff like that. It's just natural to me, maybe because I love sports.

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.

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

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

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.

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 try to teach my kids to be open.

Cinema has opened a world of possibilities up for me.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

People are not patient anymore.

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 suppose that I am ambitious.

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.

We're living in hard times.

You have to work with people you really love.

Sometimes I feel very guilty, so I don't know if I am a clear example of a perfect father, because sometimes I also just punish myself, saying I'm not doing probably the right thing at this particular moment. It's a secret.

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.

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

I have to recognize that I am agnostic.

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

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?'

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.

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.

I divide my time badly.

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.

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.

Films should be for everybody.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I don't believe in any kind of fundamentalism.

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.

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.

People change, couples change, and you have to be able to accept what is coming without trying to hang on things that you had before that they may disappear but they may transform into something that is even better.

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

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.

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.

The man who doesn't want anything is invincible.

I think I'm a romantic person, yeah.