Antonio Banderas On An Actor's Pain And Glory

After an Oscar nomination and a Cannes win, Antonio Banderas is going back to his Spanish roots—and, theatre

- Ashwin Rajagopalan

Antonio Banderas’s response to his most significant career accolade was a quick reminder that an actor’s life is not always full of red carpets and glitz. “We suffer a lot, we sacrifice, and there is a lot of pain behind being an actor of any kind. But there is also glory,” he said, after winning the best actor award for Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory) at Cannes in 2019, a role that also won him his first best actor nomination at the Oscars.

He chose the same year to go back to his roots and to an undying passion—theatre. “Theatre is just me interacting with the audience, telling them a story. We will always be in the moment, together,” he says. After a foot injury at the age of 14 dashed his childhood dream of becoming a professional footballer, he turned to theatre and street performances, and eventually landed a spot with the Spanish National Theatre. These were tumultuous times in Spain, which was emerging from decades of dictatorial rule under General Francisco Franco. Banderas became a part of Spain’s La Movida Madrileña (the Madrid Scene), a hedonistic countercultural movement.