Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya The Skin I Live In
Recently Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya came by the Sirius XM Studios to talk with Ron Bennington about their new film– The Skin I Live In. Of course you’re already familiar with Antonio’s acting and voice work in films such as Evita, The Mambo Kings, Philadelphia, Desperado, Shrek, and the Mask of Zorro. Elena has appeared in many spanish films and had roles in Van Helsing, Room in Rome, and was featured in the music video Sexy Back. Excerpts from the interview appear below:
Ron Bennington: How are you guys doing today?
Antonio Banderas: Very well thank you.
Elena Anaya: Very happy.
Ron Bennington: When I heard the music from the film, all the tension from the film came back to me. I’ve seen this film three months ago and it hasn’t left me yet.
Antonio Banderas: You know, Alberto Iglesias who is the composer of the music in the movie, is for us, in Spain– a master. He really can synthesize the whole entire spirit of the movie– the atmosphere of the movie with those violins. I feel like somebody is just pulling my skin off.
Ron Bennington: This is not an easy film to explain to anyone. As a matter of fact, I saw this film, watched it on the edge of my seat, and even when it was over, I thought to myself, I need to see it again. Because there were a couple of shifts in the film that made me think– everything I thought going up to this point, I’ve now got to throw away– it no longer makes sense to me. When you guys got the script for this, did you think, ‘oh we’re going to have a tough time pulling this off?’
Antonio Banderas: Yes, we definitely thought about it. I mean we loved it, but we knew both that we were stepping in that territory that was going to be….it was going to tear our skin out.
Ron Bennington: But you love that.
Antonio Banderas: Yes, I do. In a way I knew where I was going. Pedro Almodovar’s universe has been always like that. Expanding the universe of this very strong powerful personality, experimenting; exploring in territories that nobody has stepped in before; using different genders; different references to different filmmakers in the history of motion pictures. Even at the same time creating something that I think should be called Pedro Almodovar’s genre, itself. So I knew that we were stepping into a territory that was unknown for everybody – even for him. We were all experimenting in the time that we were rehearsing and that is always, my friend, painful because you are not using something that is comfortable; that you know…already worked with audiences. You are reinventing yourself.
Ron Bennington: It’s an uncomfortable film to watch and yet there are just thrilling aspects to it. Your character in particular Elena, you will have totally different thoughts about this character. Why is this happening? Is there anything else she could be doing? Is she part of it? Then basically, who is she?
Elena Anaya: Yea it is such a complex character that I had the pleasure to play with master Pedro Almodovar and of course Antonio Banderas, the best partner ever. It was complicated but Pedro was able to explain me exactly what he wanted; which personality, which identity we had to create even though this character suffers a massive transformation. And it was a path that we all have to follow. It’s true that Pedro went farther with this film, and I was very surprised. Every time he reinvented himself. This time, oh my God, he went so high. And I was jumping with no net. But you know, thanks God, valiant…wild people take you there.
Ron Bennington: And with actors I guess it’s all about identity and transformation anyway. So that plays a big part of this whole film: who are you? who are you at that time?
Antonio Banderas: Of course, I play on paper– a psychopath. That’s what the character is all about. But then it engulfs a metaphor, that I think floats during the whole entire movie about creation, and ultimately about art. Pedro Almodovar, when we were in the Cannes film festival he said something at the press conference that really called my attention. He said, ‘directing movies is almost like playing God.’ And in a way that’s what my character is pretending to do; becoming a semi-God. Creating an identity for somebody from scratch. And there are a lot of references in the movie, to that– very, very subtly put in the movie. For example, I don’t have a monitor in my bedroom that is normal size. No, no, no, I have almost like a movie screen in there, in which he is looking at the movie of his life– with his creation– he can do his closeups with her. He eventually jumps on the other side and becomes an actor in his own movie. So there is a big reflection about that. But the movie is explained by using genres like horror movies, like thrillers. But at the end it becomes an auteur movie. That’s what the movie is all about. It’s a very European concept.
Ron Bennington: And it really does dip in and out of different genres. You brought up that you play a psychopath but so buttoned down, so controlled. Everything is such internal life for you.
Antonio Banderas: There were two reasons for that, which Almodovar gave me after the discussions that we had about the character in the rehearsal period; both of them were very solid. The first one was formal and had to do with the possibility of creating a character that the people could not read. That actually is limitless. If you create certain parameters, the people can actually catch up on you, and he didn’t want that. It has to be continuously unexpected at every movement that he was doing on the screen. The second reason has to do with internally what the character was all about. And we talked very much about that kind of psychopathy. People who actually perform horrendous crimes, especially serial killers. And when they got caught, the police and press go and interview neighbors and people who actually knew this person– normally they say no he was actually a wonderful guy; he was charming and well dressed, and polite; a well-mannered, educated, personality. We can’t believe that all these crimes that they are accusing him are true. Why? Because these characters actually have the capacity to meld with the society in which they live– absolutely undetectable. And that is actually what produced more chills about that character. Pedro never ever allowed me to wink an eye to the audience. Not do one gesture that actually is monstrous. He has to be a normal person operating in a level of normality and that is what makes him so…incantant.
Ron Bennington: That’s another kind of strange skin that you live in; that’s another invention; to put this on for the rest of the world to see one thing, while you have this internal life. But at the same time you do look for sympathy within that character.
Antonio Banderas: Because Pedro wanted to deceive the audience. If you structurally watch the movie, in terms of narrative the first hour of the movie is a question without an answer. Who is this woman? Why is she locked in a room? What is the relationship with this guy? Why is this older lady is telling him to kill her? There are all these questions, it’s almost like a roller coaster that you are going up tah-tah-tah-tah-tah; you are getting higher and higher and higher with expectations and then you start going down and taking all these twists. And in terms of morality, Pedro plays a game that is very strong with the audience. He provided my character with a history that actually empathize with the audience. He lost his wife. His daughter is in a mental institution. And suddenly people may feel for him until they discover that there is a darker story behind the guy.
Ron Bennington: We’re going the way we’ve been trained by theater and movies for years to try to empathize with the lead character. But as the movies going on, I actually started to feel like I was high. Watching this movie I felt like the peyote kicked in. It is the strangest film. And when people were asking me whether I liked the movie, I thought, I really want to think about this for a while.
Antonio Banderas: You know, think about what we have in our days. A globalization of feelings. People who are constantly looking for box office and cutting the peaks and the loss to something that is eatable. To produce an artifact that is so complicated that you actually have to think about it– you have to deal with it. And we understand that because we had to deal with it too.
Ron Bennington: Elena when you were playing someone that’s kind of victimized like that, and you’re so exposed, does that get into you a little bit? Does that start to depress you?
Elena Anaya: It really requires a lot of concentration. Like every day, when I was in the car, getting inside this mansion, this isolated place in the middle of nothing– my jail for six years– in a way it was like getting inside the character– like living that skin– already. It needs to be absolutely focused in the story because the character tells things without saying anything. And we see a face that does not reflect her reality. She is like living inside of another body. In a way, we had to be very precise with every little scene. And Pedro is a master for that. He exactly explains to you why this scene was written and what you need to do in every little moment. So yea, that was like, to chase him and to be there and to have the nerve to live in that skin, which is not easy at all.
Ron Bennington: And also I think Pedro shot this from such a minimal standpoint that it’s just about what’s happening on the screen which makes it more difficult, I think, to watch. There’s nothing to hide behind.
Antonio Banderas: No tricks.
Ron Bennington: Yea there’s no tricks at all. And that leaves it up to the actors too I imagine.
Antonio Banderas: Yea, we felt that kind of responsibility. As Elena was saying, he was unbelievably precise. He just put together a terminology, almost new, just to describe how I felt as an actor. Because he asked us to be unbelievably contained and cold and minimalist and economical in our expressions. But he did direct us in these micro-worlds. It was almost the quantum physics of acting. In a way– you know minimalism, the little things, because the movie is so austere, is of vital importance. When you produce some of those gestures, looks, little things that are happening. The whole entire movie is put together with a very thin wire. In that kind of minimalism, if you think about the amount of relationships and situations that happen, that cross each other…you know this person who knows this person but doesn’t know that this person is their mother and I kill a guy that is supposed to be my brother but I don’t know that he is my brother. It’s just complex, complex.
Ron Bennington: And then the audience has the feeling of being a detective and then the more this opens up the less you even want to know. You’re like oh my God, I don’t know if I want to open that door. And also it’s a film for adults. You’ve got to be on your toes here. Amazing to have you guys out promoting this and thank you for stopping by.
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To hear the full interview in its entirety, listen to Ron Bennington Interviews on Stars Too on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here for a free trial.
For more information about the film visit the official website.
