The Hollywood News was lucky enough to attend the PUSS IN BOOTS press conference yesterday to see if Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek and Chris Miller would let the cat out of the bag and give us some inside scoop on the long-awaited movie.
The trio didn’t give away too much; an embarrassing childhood nickname from Antonio ‘Dumbo’ Banderas and Chris Miller’s love for Monty Python were pretty much all we could squeeze out of them. One thing we did discover- Hayek is an undercover comedian; making a room full of film critics laugh is no mean feat…who knew?!
Despite a blunder from Hayek, swearing in a live UK broadcast to thousands of children, it wasn’t a particularly groundbreaking 45 minutes but THN was just pleased to be in such close proximity of the one and only Zorro and to say we’d been in the French Salon at Claridge’s.
Puss and Kitty
Q: Are there any similarities between you and your characters and did you feel any pressure to make a film about Puss without any of the other characters of Shrek?
Banderas: Well I adore this character. It would be bad for me to say I have similarities with him because I would be saying things that I have when I don’t. He is just too courageous and I try to be but it’s hard. But what I would say is that I think creative people, the script writers and our director and everybody who is involved in the movie they try to get a lot of your personal features and so I may have something of my character and also they make references to characters that I have played in the past like Zoro so I suppose there is something there. More and more I can see a little bit more of myself in him.
Hayek: I am very independent and I have a great sense of adventure and I do feel like I have a lot of similarities with my character but I want to clarify that I am not a thief. In that manner we are not alike at all.
Miller: When we make a movie we spend a lot of time in our editorial bay and we record a voice for everything before we bring in any of the performers. So somehow we end up gaining a few of the parts.
Q: What films did you watch when you were younger?
Banderas: I loved Peter Pan. It doesn’t mean that I have a Peter Pan complex because I grew up but I just love the adventures and the possibility of never growing up.
Hayek: Not really inspiring but that sent me to the shrink. There was Bambi that gave me depression at the age of 6 or 7. It confronted me with death and I’m still dealing with that one. Then there were the princesses and those ones mess you up because you think that a prince is going to come and you think if you’re good looking you can get away with anything in life which is not true. But then came Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory and this was redemption because then I understood that there was a place in the world where anything could happen and this is what made me want to be an actress because there was this place in the world called film where you could go and you had no limitations.
Miller: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I loved that film. I just remember seeing it- I was far too young. It felt forbidden but the animation in that film was so inspiring, I’ve never laughed so hard at a movie at such a young age.
Q: Why has it taken so long for the scene-stealing Puss to get his own gig?
Director Chris Miller And Antonio Banderas
Miller: I think it’s taken just long enough. The idea has been out there since he first appeared in the Shrek film, you know the size and scope of that character and the way Antonio infused that sort of demanded it and coupled with the giant big eyes he’s sort of a weapon of mass destruction. It took just a little bit of time for the right kind of story to come along so we knew it was just a matter of time.
Q: What point in the portrayal of Puss did you realise you’d hit upon an iconic movie figure one that would entertain not only your children but children all over?
Banderas: I don’t know if I’ve got to that point yet. But it was very rewarding to see when we opened Shrek 2 at Cannes and suddenly everybody was talking about a cat- that was cool. And then Jeffrey started thinking about a movie and I was invited to participate in Shrek 3 and 4 but I don’t know if at this particular time we are at that point. The audiences around the world if this character is going to have a longer life or not and it seems that we might be going in that direction because the responses we have been getting are great.
Q: At the very beginning of the movie Puss comes out with a whole list of nicknames. What were the nicknames you three had when you were kids?
Banderas: When I was a little kid, thank god nature has corrected that, my ears were big so in school everybody called me Dumbo.
Q: Anyone who can star in THE SKIN I LIVE IN and PUSS IN BOOTS in the same period must be good. How does it feel to break Hollywood- to be able to mix and match those films now?
Banderas: I think that movies serve many different purposes from life comedies to movies that reflect about the complexities about the human soul and this particular year was almost like a metaphor of my career in a way and having these to movies come one behind the other. Puss is so light and shiny and fun and the other one is pitch black, it’s literally a dark movie, it’s disturbing but that is what I think an actor should accomplish. Just to have the possibility of going to those two universes and everything in the middle. I have a new movie coming out that I play a completely different character you might not even recognise me and I’ve got a beard and also a movie that is coming out in France called Black Gold but that is for me what movies are about.
Q: Antonio and Salma- you’ve worked together on screen and you’ve now worked together in a recording studio. How much more challenging is it to build a relationship in a recording studio as appose to running around together performing stunts like in Desperado?
Hayek: After 18 years of knowing him and working together and being friends it was not challenging at all to build a relationship with Antonio and also because I knew his character so well because I have a four year old who watches those films over and over I felt like I had a ghost in the recording studio talking to me because I could almost hear him saying the lines. Not to mention that Chris Miller is such a good imitator of Antonio.
Banderas: Same thing- we’ve known each other for a while and somehow you know the lines are going to be coming and I knew how Salma was going to be saying this more or less what she was going to do with those lines. We fight very well on the screen- we can produce a lot of comedy.
Q: Did you have a strategy for the roles- Puss is a family movie- do you exercise a different muscle with your voice. Is that a deliberate strategy or does it just happen that way?
Banderas: Yes definitely but for me it came almost 10 years ago when the character was given to me. It was then that I had to make choices. My choice and of the people I had around me at the time. I remember us saying here we have a character that is very little so hat voice had to be for him. I could have gone like this [high pitched voice] and a little voice but I think the choice we made was to go in the opposite direction. Not even using my usual voice but using something even deeper and more suave. It was a very interesting choice and has established some of the personality of the character. It’s almost like a lion trapped in the body of a little kitty kat and that gave him something completely different.
Q: Puss uses his big eyes to get his own way I wondered what techniques you use to get yours?
Hayek: I think that I am very good at adjusting to anything or any situation and if you can do this you can have the knowledge of how to do things. Being malleable is a great weapon and I know very good strategies.
You can catch PUSS IN BOOTS 3D in UK cinemas from 9th December.
