CS Interview: Antonio Banderas Talks The 33 and Terrence Malick

Our exclusive interview with Antonio Banderas, star of The 33!

In the new film The 33, director Patricia Riggen (Under the Same Moon, Girl in Progress) seeks to tell the true story of the 33 Chilean miners buried alive during a catastrophic collapse in 2010. Their struggle to survive in the harshest physical and psychological conditions forms the backbone of the film, which typifies their heroic courage in the form of fearless leader Mario Sepúlveda -a.k.a. “Super Mario”- as portrayed by star Antonio Banderas (The Mask of ZorroThe Skin I Live In, The Expendables 3).

We had the chance to sit down for an exclusive 1-on-1 chat with Banderas, who talked about some interesting incidents from the ordeal which Mario told him about but did not make it into the film, as well as how they kept the story of The 33 compelling for those that already know the outcome. He also gave us a fascinating look into the filmmaking process of one of cinema’s most reclusive auteurs, Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line, Tree of Life), who directed Banderas in the upcoming Hollywood drama Knight of Cups

ComingSoon.net: Going into the movie I was half-dreading it, worrying that it was going to be Disney-fied, worried about all the very-non-Chilean people playing the roles. Once you get into it, though, it has an authenticity to it.

Antonio Banderas: It happens to me too, you know. We are not oblivious to that. When we jump into the movie, we try to be conscious of that. “How can we make this coherent and something that is actually interesting?” I think the key was to look for what is in the movie that is bigger than the story itself. That is the key point. Those concepts of faith, the supreme value of life, it makes sense to see people fight so hard, having so little. To see people dig and crawl to enjoy just a little bit of food, and that’s it. It’s good for people to watch this and say, “Yes, life has a very strong value and we have to protect it.”

CS: How much interaction did you have with Super Mario and the other guys?

Antonio Banderas: A lot. With Super Mario a lot, we became very good friends.

CS: He seems very gregarious.

Antonio Banderas: He’s out of his mind, but in a good way. You have to be crazy to take the burden that he took and take over the whole thing and try to “pilot the ship.” These are tough guys. You meet them in real life, they are very strong.

CS: Just to go miles into that mine to begin with you have to be a little crazy.

Antonio Banderas: Yeah, in a way. Yeah. I really didn’t know how aggressive an environment a mine is. It’s not like going into outer space, but there’s a lot of things that happen there that are effecting you physically and mentally.

CS: There’s a whole checklist of things about their experience that a movie just can’t relay, like what it’s like to be in absolute darkness for that long. It’s like being in a sensory deprivation tank for 15-days. Or the smell, or the heat or the exhaustion. Can you talk about some of the things that couldn’t be relayed in the movie?

Antonio Banderas: Many things. Some of them I can’t because I promised Mario that I wouldn’t tell. Actually, there was a pact among the miners to say, “This is it, this never happened.” But I can tell you things that even we shot that are not in the movie. For example (laughs), this is absolutely absurd. For guys that didn’t have calories, and were literally dying, they played a soccer match, believe it or not, with a ball they made out of socks. These guys didn’t have energy but they were playing a soccer match. It’s absurd, but they did! Also, Mario had the moment he was expelled out of the group, he tells you that he talked to the Devil, that he felt his presence there in front of him. He was rehearsing speeches, because he sees himself giving speeches to the world. He stood at the podium and talked to the rocks in his solitude. He said to me that to explain what hunger is, it’s not a physical reaction, it is a mental thing that drives you nuts. He said they were all completely out of their mind after those first 20 days. He knew their own body was eating their brain and they started having very strong visions. There were a lot of psychological things going on down there that are very difficult to express in an hour and a half.

CS: It’s a great expression of that old Hitchcock idea that suspense isn’t not knowing what’s going to happen, but rather not knowing how or when.

Antonio Banderas: That’s very good, actually! I didn’t know that was an expression of Hitchcock, but it’s true.

CS: For the people at home watching the news during that time, they kept expecting there to be 33 dead bodies in there.

Antonio Banderas: It’s true. I think what Hitchcock wanted to say is having to do with going against the people saying, “I don’t want to see that movie because I know the outcome.” But again, you talk about “Titanic” or “Apollo 13” because they are very big, mainstream movies that talk about the “how.” You’re expecting it, but how did it happen? How it came to be. Then when you’re watching the movie you say, “Oh my God, how close they were!” I was watching that on television like any spectator. I didn’t KNOW there was going to be a movie, I didn’t know I was going to be in it, but I was thinking, “How must it have been down there?” That’s a question I was asking myself, trying to put myself in their position. What are they feeling? How is that tunnel coming? What are their thoughts coming out? One of the things that surprised me was when I saw how good they looked, because they were receiving food for awhile. They got to shave, they got to prepare. They wanted to come up in those uniforms they sent down, almost a perfect Hollywood moment! But they were f*cked up beyond belief. That’s the truth. (laughs)

CS: Recently you got to work with one of the great white whales of directors, Terrence Malick, on “Knight of Cups.” 

Antonio Banderas: Didn’t see anything yet. No. It’s been the most weird cinematic experience I have ever had in my life. He sent me a monologue of nine pages, pretty much didn’t make sense, I was talking about very little things and then suddenly I was talking about the whole universe. Things like that, in a very short space with no transitions. I went there and the first thing he said was, “I didn’t send you a script for a reason, and that is we don’t have a script. We have a character played by Christian Bale and we are putting him through a number of experiences we will connect later. You will be at a party, and this monologue I sent you we will shoot in five different locations. Then I’m going to send you what I call ‘torpedoes,’ which are actors who are going to improvise with you in the middle of your stuff.” So he sent me women that took me against the wall and started kissing me, beautiful ladies, and then suddenly an old lady that’s talking about the death of her husband that I am supposed to know. “Oh, Ramone died?” Then you just do whatever you want! Literally. At the party I did coke, I played basketball with a bunch of models, I jump in the pool with my tuxedo on with two girls kissing me. I went crazy in a crazy party that didn’t actually make so much sense, but at the same time I thought, “Oh my God, this guy got the balls to write the movie as he’s doing it!” What I am is part of the mental process of a creator that can be right or can be wrong, I can’t tell you because I didn’t see the movie. I was surprised when someone from his office called me and said, “Antonio, would you mind if we put you fifth in the poster?” I said, “I AM IN THE MOVIE!” (laughs)

CS: There’s always that fear when you’re in a Malick movie that you might wind up on the cutting room floor!

Antonio Banderas: Yeah. I remember saying to him, “Tell me, am I going to be in the movie?” “Oh yeah! You’re gonna be in the movie!” One of the camera guys, a Mexican guy, was looking at me whispering, “We don’t know.” (laughs) We were kind of experimenting, which is rare in Hollywood. People freak out with the money and this and that and everything has to be directed towards the audiences. Not this guy, it doesn’t go bad at all. You feel like a pen and somebody is writing with you.

CS: Like paint on a palette.

Antonio Banderas: At the same time the paint can have life. I remember at some point he said, “You can rest for five minutes.” I said, “Sure!” So I was just sitting there resting, and he was shooting with Christian, a bunch of people around improvising and I got an idea and jumped in the scene! He saw me and he was like [*two thumbs up*] “Yeah, yeah… AWESOME!” And I was supposed to be resting. I’m very thankful to him and I have a big deal of respect for Terrence Malick and the way that against all the odds… whatever the direction of the river he goes in the other direction.

Warner Bros. Pictures will open The 33 in theaters everywhere this Friday, November 13, while Broad Green Pictures will give Knight of Cups a limited release on March 4, 2016.

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