Antonio Banderas on his first meeting with Melanie Griffith at the Oscars: "I was married to her when I was six."
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Antonio Banderas and Pedro Almodóvar star in one of the most talked-about moments of the documentary series Pedro x Javis , available on Movistar Plus+. In one episode, the Malaga-born actor recalls with humor and nostalgia how a gala night in Hollywood not only cemented his international breakthrough, but also changed his love life forever.
On the red carpet at the 1989 Oscars, where Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown was competing for the Best Foreign Language Film statuette, Banderas, still hungover from the previous celebration with Almodóvar, was dazzled by a "gorgeous woman in a long dress full of pearls."
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"I said, 'Who is it?' And Pedro said, ' Melanie Griffith .' I was married to her when I was six," the actor recounted with laughter in the series directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. That chance encounter would ultimately mark a relationship lasting almost two decades , including a wedding in 1996 and a separation in 2014.
The anecdote is part of a relaxed conversation with Calvo and Ambrossi , which shows the complicity between Almodóvar and Banderas, an artistic duo that redefined Spanish cinema since the 1980s with titles such as Laberinto de pasiones, ¡Átame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!), and La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In) . The documentary Pedro x Javis dedicates a special space to this creative and emotional bond, without nostalgia, but with gratitude and a sense of humor.
Since that appearance at the Oscars, Banderas's international career took a definitive turn . The Malaga native went from being a promising figure in the Madrid scene to starring in blockbusters like The Mask of Zorro and Evita . But, as his testimony in the series demonstrates, he never lost his connection with the La Mancha filmmaker. Pedro x Javis , by reconstructing these episodes from the intimate perspective of its protagonists, becomes an emotional chronicle of the cinema of the most relevant contemporary Spanish author.
El Confidencial
