“What’s the next big production in his theater?”  “Have you heard? — He just opened a new restaurant!”

And that’s the way it goes in Malaga, where the Spanish actor and director Antonio Banderas is the talk of the town. His recent decision to move back to his birthplace and launch an array of artistic and business projects made a big splash. The city he loves and supports tries not to miss any news about the Mask of Zorro star.

Cue his July 2023 interview with Yahoo Entertainment . It was done in connection with the 25th anniversary since director Martin Campbell’s version of the classic saga hit the movie screens.  One of the big headline-making aspects of that interview was Banderas’ recollection of his conversation with the legendary producer Steven Spielberg during the filming of The Mask of Zorro, which became a huge hit after its release in 1998.  What the Spanish star found especially memorable was Spielberg’s prediction about the coming changes to the way movies were shot. Computer-generated imaging (CGI) will soon replace practical filmmaking, Spielberg suggested.  
      
In the Yahoo Entertainment interview Banderas recalled it this way: “Steven Spielberg said to me once when we were shooting, ‘This is probably going to be one of the last Westerns shot in the way the Westerns were shot in the old days, with real scenes with real horses, where everything is real, [real] sword fighting, no CGI.’”

Things were going to change and change fast, Spielberg told Banderas, adding that the actor should be proud of this movie.  “And I am,” Banderas told Yahoo Entertainment, “probably even more now than at the time that I was doing it. I don’t know if I was absolutely conscious when I was doing ‘Zorro’ that it was going to have an impact…”

A fascinating admission by the movie star of his caliber. But then the Malaga native is known for introspection and self-reflection in his approach to work, and life. It was on full display when he was pondering the role of his boyhood idol in the award-winning anthology series, Genius: Picasso, on National Geographic Channel. In 2023, the year of tributes marking the 50th anniversary since the death of Malaga’s most famous son, it could be a good way to reflect on Picasso’s legacy.