Antonio Banderas: “I have been the eternal nominee” | Culture

At two in the morning of Sunday, with the statuette of Goya for the best actor in his hand, Antonio Banderas (Málaga, 59 years old) insisted: “I live my best professional year. Really. The awards I have received, the opening of the theater ... I am deeply happy. ”

Tired, after the afternoon show of To Chorus Line -The work that he has on his poster in his theater in Malaga-, the red carpet of the Goya, the award ceremony and the final performance in which he sang and danced with his theater companions, the Malaga decided to go home. Yesterday, another function was waiting for him again at Soho CaixaBank before getting on his plane to present today in Barcelona the start of the tour of To Chorus Line and fly tomorrow to New York to give the last promotion push to his Oscar nomination for best actor for Pain and glory . "If my cardiologist were here I would be freaking out, because I have a thousand heart," he confessed on stage after receiving the Goya. The poor doctor must have suffered his own on Saturday.

Yesterday, hours before his evening performance in his theater, Flags (Málaga, 59 years old) He reiterated his happiness on the phone. “I have been working in Los Angeles for decades and therefore until recently Goya seemed like a distant prize. But I have been nominated five times ... I very much appreciated the Goya of Honor and the Academy Medal, but on Saturday it has a special flavor because I have been there many times. I have been the eternal nominee. ”

The actor lets loose all his nominations for grand prizes: Golden Globes, Tony, Emmy ... “And my name was never said at the end. At least I have been 40 years in that race, ”he recalls, to end up confessing:“ That your name is heard is very special. And in a magical year, with the best director of my life ... I remember how decades ago we went to international festivals with one hand in front and the other behind and won prizes. There are so many memories ... ” And so he decided to get carried away, "surf the emotion" and improvise a speech.

Instead, for Oscar he knows there are few possibilities. "I'm paying Batman to see if the Joker is loaded," he joked with the press. On the phone, she says: “I put myself in the hands of Sony Classics, the US distributor of Pain and glory. I will go to the Stephen Colbert program on Tuesday [tras dos coloquios en sendos cines], then I will make every possible morning on Wednesday, Thursday in Los Angeles I will appear in the late night Conan O'Brien, and radios ... Honestly, I'm late because I've focused on my theater, and to win the Oscar you have to play the dishes all day and make a lot of noise. But I plan to enjoy the ceremony, go super relaxed after this year. Without speeches in your pocket, because it will not happen, although with the pride of being nominated with a small film and a character who speaks in Spanish, leaving out Christian Bale, Robert De Niro ... ”.

Saturday's Goya closed a week with less glorious matters than the prize: the abandonment of Lluís Pasqual of the artistic direction of the Soho CaixaBank, which I had assumed in February of last year. A thunderous exit, because Pasqual was a star signing of Banderas. “My theater occupies me, but it doesn't worry me,” replies the actor. "We have started very strong, selling 55,000 tickets in four days, making history in Spanish theater. We have opened and we will have full. This afternoon [por el domingo] I'm going to put people on benches because there's no place. Are we going down? Of course, although constancy will be the key. Lluís' absence was an almost scheduled absence from the beginning, because he told me that he would help me launch the theater and then we would see. That ‘we would see’ has passed. I think he will come to direct soon; it has remained in the air, although I know it will happen, because the farewell has been without acrimony and leaving here a wonderful human team. ”

Banderas insists that he is already programming the 2021/2022 season, in contact with a network with other scenarios: “In June we are likely to build another theater to link it to the school. The Soho project is not just a room in the center of Malaga. It includes an education of actors and technical teams. ” And on the horizon is his next movie in Spain. “It will be a comedy with Penelope Cruz"Confirms. "Little else can I tell."