When Antonio Banderas walks into the room, it’s a bit of a let-down. Instead of the swaggering tabby in stylish boots and saucy chapeau, he’s a regular guy, tragically sporting double denim, and asking for the AC to be turned down. Prey for mercy from Puss in Jeans perhaps?

But then he opens his mouth and that iconic voice comes out. ‘So what do you want to know?’ he asks. It’s a voice, and an accent, that has made him famous.

‘For me Puss in Boots [known as Cat in Boots in Qatar] is a paradox because when I first came to America I could not even speak the language! So the fact that they now call me 20 years after just to use my voice is unbelievable,’ he says. In fact, he says the accent and the voice is one of the things that makes Puss such a star.

‘We took a decision in the beginning, which was I think crucial, to provide him with a voice that actually he’s not supposed to have. He’s not supposed to have this thick voice. I think that’s a source of comedy for the character, that dichotomy is just perfect for him. It makes him very sweet and lovable in a way.’

He’s more than just a drawing on paper—Banderas had a hand in creating him 10 years ago, and developing him through the Shrek movies and onto his first solo debut in Cat in Boots.

‘What I tried to do is just a character. I don’t work with the animation, I just go in front of a microphone and I’m pretty much free to do whatever I want. I have a script and I read my lines and then the fun starts,’ says Banderas. ‘Because I say “I had this idea last night” or “let me just improvise a little bit over here”. The script is very flexible, you know. At the beginning they give you a script that’s hardly going to make it to the movie. We get to the end of the process and just the number of changes, not only from the voices and the actors but coming from the creative team, they are seeing what you’re doing, what they’re doing, so you’re both growing in different ways.’

Banderas recently turned 51, and has spent most of his life acting. Starting at 14 when he was arrested by General Franco’s troops after playing Bertolt Brecht to today, he’s had a career spanning more than nine lives.

‘Many times (I thought I wouldn’t make it). In fact it wasn’t the plan. It was kind of an accident. When I did my first movie I thought that was going to be something I could tell my kids. ‘I did a movie with Warner Bros once’. I went back to Spain and I continued working there, I did a movie in Italy, and then (I was) called to do some screen testing in New York with Tom Hanks for Philadelphia, and I said “ok”. And I did the movie too, so I went back to Spain thinking “ok I’ve done two”. And then they called me back and little by little they started giving me more responsibilities.’

Those responsibilities included iconic roles, from his part in the revolutionary AIDs saga Philadelphia, to Zorro and Desperado, Che and Anne-Rice Vampire Amand. He’s had parts in some of the most acclaimed movies since the 80s, and even at 51 he shows no signs of stopping. But he says he might be slowing, ever so slightly.

‘Now I’m 51, I feel I don’t have to get anywhere. You know? I got this rush, you know that play called Waiting for Godot. It was always like searching for Godot, something that doesn’t exist actually, that is your path. Now I’m more relaxed and I think ‘things will come to me, I don’t have to spend all this time looking for them’.’

One of the things that came to him was Puss. You’d think someone who’d made a name for himself partially as a smoldering Latin Casanova would mind playing a philandering pussy cat. But not Banderas.

‘I try to make people laugh and in trying to make people laugh they give me the opportunity to laugh at myself. To laugh at Zorro, to laugh at Desperado, and that’s what Puss in Boots is to me. It’s almost like the wink of an eye, saying: look, everything that I have done in the past is here now presented in a totally different shape with a totally different image and I am just making fun of my own career. And I think that’s cool.’

But, is he being upstaged by his feline better-half? He thinks so. And he’s ok with it.

‘I think I’m going to start travelling with that cat. I’m going to just make a reproduction of him and he’s going to come with me everywhere. Because women love him, even more than me, so at the end of the night if I am not successful with them I can just tell them play with my cat.’
Cat in Boots in cinemas this month.