Universal and DreamWorks Animation's 'Puss In Boots: The Last Wish'
Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
Since Puss in Boots’ first appearance in Shrek 2 in 2004, Antonio Banderas has been voicing the fairy tale character and growing alongside him. A sequel to the 2011 Puss in Boots film, DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish takes place after Shrek Forever After, when Puss in Boots (Banderas) is accidentally killed by a bell and discovers he is down to his ninth, and final, life. After a brush with a mysterious wolf who is determined to take his last life, Puss decides to live the rest of his life in hiding. However, he soon learns about a wishing star that could help them get his lives back. Banderas was excited to take Puss in a different direction for this film, taking him from a sidekick character to something more vulnerable and “human.”
PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH
Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
DEADLINE: What is it like to be with a character like Puss in Boots for nearly 20 years?
ANTONIO BANDERAS: Well, basically what happens is that you get to know him and how he would behave in different situations. More than any other character that I have done before, that I didn’t have so much time just to develop and think about. I’ve done five movies with him, and a long process of making a lot of sessions. Which is the way that you do this type of movie, you just go and you do sessions. For me, it’s not about just providing the character with a voice. It’s about creating the character with my directors and with the different agents that are around the creation of the character. There were times at the beginning when we were at DreamWorks with Jeffrey Katzenberg, he used to travel us to San Jose and Silicon Valley where the cartoonists were, and we spent time with them, and we would speak in a little theater and read the script with them so we could just keep the ideas over there. In this particular case it was just getting together in the space where I had a lot of communication through Zoom or many other different forms of communicating through distance, and just doing lines like this. Not only just the English version, but the Spanish version too.
DEADLINE: And when you first got the chance to voice Puss in Boots, what did you think of the character?
BANDERAS: At the beginning, they asked me to provide him with, of course, my accent, which is unavoidable, but also with a very little voice in the first session. So, I gave them that. But at the same time, I proposed to do a big voice for a little character to create a contrast, to create kind of a dichotomy between the image that the character is going to have on the big screen and a voice that actually doesn’t match him. I think that was a source for comedy. And they loved that possibility, so they took all the material in the first session, that was actually in New York because I was doing theater at the time on Broadway. And they came back and they said, we’re going to go for the big, more profound voice for the character, because I think we can do a lot of comedy with him like this.
PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH
Universal Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection
DEADLINE: And how has the character changed over those 20 years?
BANDERAS: I think the most profound change happened when he was alone. When he was not in the group with Shrek and Donkey and Fiona, and he got separated from them. And very specially, actually, in this last movie, which actually the premise of the movie was way more serious in a way, due probably to the special situation in which the world has been involved in the last two or three years, with the pandemic and the whole entire world confined, the kids included. And the kids are probably more victims than anybody else, because they don’t understand what’s going on out there. They are just cutting them from going to school or just having a normal relationship with their friends, or having to put a mask on, or just having to get vaccinated. And they are watching news, obviously, so it was unavoidable that they are just listening to what’s going on out there. So, I think from the moment the whole entire creative team of Puss in Boots, and I include myself in that, we started reflecting about the possibility of just being very natural and talking about something that is known by everyone, which is the possibility to die. And valuing the only life that we have. When he is on his last life, Puss in Boots has become more human than other times and he now has to take care of every move that he does.
DEADLINE: Before this film, I really thought of him as this iconic, fantastic supporting character who didn’t care about any consequences. What was it like to bring that element of seriousness to him with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish?
BANDERAS: I suppose it was risky because we take the character to a completely different dimension. As you said, he started out like a sidekick character for Shrek. Funny, because he’s a very strong personality, and mysterious in a way too, but funny and a little bit out there. Breaking all the rules, getting out of the box sometimes. Not always a politically correct character, which I had a lot a fun with that too, actually. But in this particular time, he becomes more human, more real. And you can relate to him much more than before.
One of my favorite scenes of all time with Puss in Boots was when he was panicked, he has this kind of hyperventilating attack. And then you see a vulnerable character. Human. Really, really human. And that he needs others in order to survive. And he’s starts just giving importance to not his own solitude and his vanity, but the need of a friend, the need of somebody that actually cares and puts their hand on his shoulder and takes all his tribulations and just relieves him from that. It was very nice to play that side of the character that we didn’t see before.
DEADLINE: What do you think this character has meant for all the kids who’ve grown up with him?
BANDERAS: I think they all understood, in other movies and especially in the movies when he was in Shrek, that he was a very funny character, but who has a very strong sense and a great ability to manipulate people. With his eyes, a weapon of mass destruction that he has in his eyes. So, as I said to you before, he was a humoristic character. He moved more in that direction until this last movie, in which the character became something a little bit more serious, more reflective. In a way, particularly in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, they understand a little bit more about themselves and about the fact that we all have to die. That that is the only certainty that we have. Everything else in life is relative. But death is perfect.
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