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TWO YEARS AGO, AN INTERVIEW with Antonio Banderas was a low-key affair at a breezy afternoon lunch, the only attendants a curious waiter and an eager translator, ready to unsnarl the Spanish actor's charmingly garbled expressions. But that was before Tom Hanks thanked him from every award dais, including Oscar's, for playing his lover in Philadelphia. That was before he stole scenes from Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in Interview With the Vampire. That was before his simmering, gunslinging turn in Desperado, before his marital breakup, before his steamy, tabloid-touted romance with Melanie Griffith. That was before Antonio Banderas was a star.
These days, Banderas and Griffith are camped out in a rambling beachfront house in Wilmington, N.C., where she's filming Lolita and he's keeping her company. A translator is no longer required, but a bulldozer would be helpful, if only to cut a path through the two personal assistants, the publicist, the cook, and the gofer, as well as the photographer, the photographer's two assistants, the hairdresser and makeup artist, and the fashion magazine stylist who have come to shoot Griffith during the couple's quiet weekend at home. It's more star wattage than even the electrical wiring can bear; a blackout has killed the air-conditioning, rendering the house, perfumed with rose- and lilac-scented candles, a tropical swamp.
Wait for the air to clear, and you'll spot Banderas. He's dressed in pristine white jeans and a white T-shirt. Around his waist, he's wearing Melanie Griffith, joyfully giving her a free ride into the room. The sight of Griffith's buttocks, draped in white panties so sheer you can trace the outline of a tattooed pear, momentarily obscures your view of the actor.
No matter. Banderas' ardent fans -- whose numbers grow with every new movie -- would probably recognize him if he were wearing a muumuu. Those who have been paying close attention know the actor from his work with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, most notably in 1988's Oscar-nominated Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In 1991, he was deemed a suitable lust object by Madonna, who panted after him at a dinner party in her documentary, Truth or Dare, even if she couldn't pronounce his name. Then came the more mainstream successes of Philadelphia and Vampire. And if, after his All About Eve turn in this month's Assassins -- in which he plays protage to Sylvester Stallone's hitman -- you still don't know that Banderas is Hollywood's second coming, you've been living in a box. There's never been a Spanish star in the blockbuster era, but he's looking like the first. Never mind that he's successfully navigated from art-house films to Hollywood. He's crossed the Atlantic.
''Honey, I've been in this profession for 20 years, and I've been eating a lot of s -- -,'' Banderas says, momentarily disentangled from Griffith, who has been herded off for primping. He sinks into an overstuffed couch, slouches against the pillows, and strokes his newly grown, gray-flecked beard. A nonstop work schedule, singing lessons to spruce up the voice he showed off in The Mambo Kings and Desperado, and early-morning runs to strengthen the 35-year-old smoker's lungs (for his forthcoming role as Che Guevara opposite Madonna in the musical film Evita) have left Banderas physically spent. Even his suntan doesn't disguise the shadows under his eyes.
