Money is not that important to the 61-year-old, even though he knows what it’s like to be poor, he says. Other things in life are much more important to him.
Berlin – For the Spanish actor and director Antonio Banderas (“The Mask of Zorro”), happiness doesn’t necessarily have to do with money. “I know what it’s like to be poor,” the 61-year-old told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers.
“It wasn’t until I went to America in my early 30s that I really started making money. But did that make me happier than I used to be when I could barely pay the rent? No.”
What really matters
He is not attached to things, but “to people. And in my job. I understood that again very clearly when I had a heart attack five years ago.” But money is important to him when it comes to his theater in his hometown of Malaga. “It costs a lot. But I’m giving young actors a platform here.” This gives him “a huge pleasure. I ruin myself in the process, but in a most romantic way. But so I don’t go broke, I just make a bunch of movies.”
Banderas won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 2020 for Pain and Glory, after which he was nominated for an Oscar. Now he’s playing in blockbusters again – most recently in “Uncharted”.
Speaking of the 2020 award, he said: “When I won Cannes, it made me very happy because I’ve been to this festival many times. But I don’t think about prizes having an impact on my career. I’m just happy that I can play in all kinds of styles and genres.” dpa
