Antonio Banderas--Shrek the Third

Written by Dan Hudak |

With brown pants, a red-striped shirt and his hair pulled back during a press day for “Shrek the Third,” Antonio Banderas radiates an ethereal confidence that suggests both “movie star” and humility. He’s also quite eloquent and mild-mannered, so it’s a bit unusual to hear him talk about finding his inner cat.

“It’s freaky to see a cat behave like yourself,” Banderas said of his character Puss in Boots, the animated franchise’s feisty feline who’s small in stature but big on ego. “There’s a camera on us recording every movement we make as we record the voice. That material is given to the animators so they can imitate our body language in the characters.”

More daunting than seeing himself as a cat was finding Puss’ voice.
“When I did “Shrek 2” I was on Broadway doing “Nine” and had to sing fourteen songs in eight performances a week,” Banderas said. “So I didn’t talk. I had a board to communicate with people, because otherwise I’d lose my voice. Well, hairball. I was in the recording studio for two hours (makes coughing noises) trying to get it right. So how did I create the voice? With a lot of care,” he jokes.

With care came a bold creative decision that turned out to fit the role perfectly. “The initial idea was to do a voice for Puss that fit the body — something small,” Banderas said. “And I said ‘no, no, no: let’s go in the opposite direction. Let’s provide him with a voice that is actually not coming out of his body, like Puss never had the opportunity to look at himself in the mirror and thinks he’s six feet tall.’”

In “Shrek the Third,” King Harold (John Cleese) falls ill and everyone looks to Shrek (Mike Myers) as the new king of Far, Far Away. But because he doesn’t want to give up living in his beloved swamp, Shrek, along with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots, goes on a search for the rightful heir to the throne, Artie (Justin Timberlake). Meanwhile, Fiona (Cameron Diaz) stays home to fend off an attack from Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), who’s also trying to claim the throne.

Banderas and his fellow cast mates had roughly eight or nine recording sessions over the last two years in which they were encouraged to improvise and create their characters in collaboration with directors Chris Miller and Raman Hui.

Curiously, none of the actors were ever in the studio at the same time. “The problem with everyone getting together and doing the movie in ten days would be that we would lock the movie, and there’d be no possibility of change,” Banderas said. “So the fact that we do it over a span of time allows the creators to modify the original script — whether Puss is on Shrek’s shoulder, walking next to him, etc. — so what’s written in the script and what you see on the screen are sometimes completely different things.”

Whatever happens, Banderas said the plan is to make five “Shrek” movies, with a spin-off planned in between the fourth and fifth films entitled “Puss in Boots: The Story Of An Ogre Killer,” which will explain why Puss became what he became,” Banderas said with a smile. There’s also “Shrek the Halls” coming this December, a television special in which Shrek will learn the meaning of Christmas.

And through it all, undoubtedly, Banderas himself will remain one cool cat.