Antonio Banderas says he is happy on the eve of premieres. Today is his turn: Godspell, the musical he directed and premiered in December at the Soho Caixabank in Malaga, the theater of his loves.
We are at the Teatro Pavón. This is not a luxurious place on Gran Vía.
I was looking in Madrid for a brother to Soho Caixabank. I found Pavón and made an offer. We were there, negotiating, but someone with more money arrived, and I lost the theater. They told me, 'Let's remain friends, you have this place here to premiere.' Because it's true, Luis Álvarez, the owner, is a guy I like, smart, and moves very well.
So, it's not like they are going to do musicals in the old Pavón-Kamikaze style.
We don't work for money either. We lost money with Company and Gipsy. A Chorus Line sold 350,000 tickets...
And did it come out owing?
Of course, it did. We had 26 musicians. In Company, the same, 26 musicians, 35 actors, 40 technicians. It cost about 190,000 euros per week. We filled the theater to not lose much. But they can't take away the dance from me. I did what I wanted, how I wanted to do it, and with the perfect people. How can that be a failure? The pursuit of excellence is an end in itself.
If a year has two movies that fail, does it weigh heavily on you? The cinema always surprises, for better or for worse. I made movies that were supposed to break the box office and no one saw them. And movies that no one was supposed to see and they succeeded. But it's different because movies are made with the duty to come out victorious. Here, I am the one measuring the risk.
So, is there a path for slightly indie musicals?
My path is to be true to myself and the audience. If it's said to be live music, it's live music. The theater's policy is 'nothing is prerecorded.' The actors sing, the choirs sing, and if the score says 19 string instruments, there are 19 string instruments. Company was expensive, but what about the faces of the people, and colleagues saying 'we haven't heard this before'? Andrew Lloyd Webber came and couldn't believe it, he said that something like that hadn't been done since 1950.
What is difficult? Finding works that are worthwhile, finding talent, finding an audience...
The difficult part is connecting. The theater is that, right now, with everything that happens with artificial intelligence, with those crystal brains they've put in our pockets... The theater has become the space for truth. For many truths, because authors think differently... But also for an undeniable truth: there is a group of people in front of another group of people, all flesh and blood. They tell a story and vibrate. That is very important for young people. Young people are in a terrible moment, they have an extraordinary attention deficit. They grow up without stories. They are subjected to this scroll crap. Life is not a scroll, life is a book. And you have to get in there because there is a reward at the end. You have to tell young people, there is a reward. If you read James Joyce, there is a reward. You will develop an intelligence that is hard to beat. You will develop a personality, you will read reality better, you will know how to choose. They are turning people into votes... There is a moment in the play where Judas says that. 'I have a trick better than Jesus' miracles: I can turn someone into something.'
What does this play have that you like?
It's a song to simple morals. Love thy neighbor. It seems easy. Well, it's not. Forgiveness, charity, humility. These are ideas that seem Christian but are human. That's what this play gives us. That, and it lightens the spiritual burden. We don't need so much weight on our shoulders. We can access those values from a lighter perspective. We can laugh and then cry... The Bishop of Malaga came to the premiere and said something funny. He said, 'Antonio, I like this play so much that I'm tempted to say it's heretical so that more people come.'
Isn't it heretical?
I don't think so. People will discover that Jesus' messages are pure.
Did you go to a school run by priests?
I went to schools run by priests and secular schools. My family wasn't strict. The most religious thing that has happened in my life is my relationship with Holy Week, but that has more to do with the artistic identity of my town. In Malaga, it's called popular religiosity. And there I identify a lot because it has to do with my smells, my friends.
There is always an idea of coming back home in everything you say.
I returned as if Malaga were Ithaca.
But that usually ends in disappointment.
I am happy. I didn't come to get into a coffin. I came to start over, to feed a child. The child is my theater. I no longer have the need to go outside.
How long have you been in Spain?
Seven years.
In the years you spent in the US, did you see a bit of it?
I always felt like I was passing through. I almost forgot when I got married and became a father. Then I thought maybe I would end my days there. But that intuition returned quickly.
And in 2010, in the US, did you have a premonition of 'this is going to end badly'?
With the Americans? The Americans are going to have to take a hit. But if they hit themselves, we will all suffer. I think the relationship between the north and the south has been managed very poorly.
Does north and south mean poverty and wealth?
Poverty and wealth, yes. We haven't gone to Africa with a Marshall Plan. But what politician will do something that will be rewarded in 2056?
Are we heading towards the same self-destruction in Europe?
I don't know. Look at that return to spirituality that everyone talks about. We see too many dead on screen. We are normalizing the blood of others. Too many dead children among rubble like anchovies. That damages the human psyche a lot."