Antonio Banderas is the stage name of Jose Antonio Dominguez Bandera, who is best-known for being a Spanish actor but has also been a singer, a director, and a producer at various points over the course of his career. However, it is interesting to note that Banderas has done some voice acting as well, which is a shame because he doesn’t do enough of it.
How Much Voice Acting Has Antonio Banderas Done?
Banderas is known to have voiced at least one character on a commercial at one point. Other than that, he voiced Sir Clorex in Justin and the Knights of Valour, which was a Spanish 3D-animated movie about a boy named Justin who wanted to become a knight. In it, Sir Clorex served as something of a secondary antagonist as well as a reminder that what mattered most wasn’t someone’s appearance but rather their character by being a ne’er-do-well who won the hearts of the townspeople by dressing up in stolen armor. Besides his role as a voice actor, it is interesting to note that Banderas also did a fair amount of work on the movie as one of its four producers.
However, Banderas’s voice acting should be most familiar to most people through the character Puss in Boots, who appeared in multiple movies in the Shrek franchise. In brief, Puss in Boots was like his name suggests, based on the cat from the fairy tale who helped his human master win power, wealth, and the hand-in-marriage of a loving wife through his cunning, who was meant to teach the readers about the importance of looks and appearance as much as industriousness and good, old-fashioned know-how. However, what is interesting about Puss in Boots is that he is based on not just the cat from the fairy tale but also on Zorro, as shown by his hat, his sword, and his black cape.
As a result, the choice of Banderas for his voice actor was perfect because he played Zorro in both The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro, which provided him with more than enough expertise and experience to play the role of the feline swashbuckler. Unsurprisingly, the result was a massive hit, so much so that Puss in Boots actually went on to star in his own movie called, appropriately, Pussy in Boots. A movie that went on to earn more $555 million at the box office before spawning a planned sequel as well as a TV show. Unfortunately, the sequel has been pushed back, while the character is played by a different voice actor on the TV show.
Summed up, it is clear that Banderas possesses plenty of talent as a voice actor. It is good that he will be reprising his role as Puss in Boots in Puss in Boots 2, but it would be even better if he would voice act for more roles in more movies. After all, when that much talent goes underused, it is nothing short of a shame.
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