Trivia: Internationally known for his charisma and smoldering good looks, Antonio Banderas is the ultimate manifestation of the Latin heartthrob. Born in Málaga, Spain on August 10, 1960, Banderas wanted to become a professional soccer player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of fourteen. He went on to enroll in some drama classes, eventually joining a theatre troupe that toured all over Spain. His work in the theatre, and his performances on the streets, eventually landed him a spot with the National Theatre of Spain. While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his film debut, Laberinto de Pasione (Labyrinth of Passion) (1982). He went on to appear in the director's La Ley del Deseo (Law of Desire) (1984), making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodóvar's Matador (1986), the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1988). The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when he starred in Almodóvar's controversial Atame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love.Banderas made his first stateside appearance as an unwitting object of Madonna's affections in Truth or Dare (1991). The following year, still speaking next to no English, he starred in his first American film, The Mambo Kings. It was a testament to his acting abilities that, despite having to learn all of his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician. He broke through to mainstream American audiences as the gay lover of AIDS-afflicted lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) in Philadelphia (1993). The film's success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year he was given a substantial role in Neil Jordan's high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, which allowed him to share the screen with the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Banderas subsequently appeared in a number of films of widely varying quality, doing particularly strong work in Desperado (1995), Evita (1998), and The Mask of Zorro (1998). In 1999, he made his first foray into directing with Crazy in Alabama, a black comedy starring Melanie Griffith, to whom he had been married since 1996. The following year he starred as an aspiring boxer opposite Woody Harrelson in Play It to the Bone, portrayed a Cuban tycoon with a bad seed bride (Angelina Jolie) in Original Sin, and starred alongside Bob Hoskins and Wes Bentley in The White River Kid. Well established as a hearthrob and a talented dramatic actor by the end of the 1990s, the fact that Desperato director Robert Rodriguez was the only director to have expolored Banderas' comic potential (Banderas provided one of the few memorable performances in Rodriguez's segment of the otherwise abysmal Four Rooms (1995)) hinted at a heretofore unexplored but potentially lucrative territory for the actor. Later approached by Rodriguez to portray the super-spy patriarch in the family oriented adventure comedy Spy Kids (2001), Banderas charmed children and adults alike with his role as a kidnapped agent whose children must discover their inner stregnth in order to rescue their mother and father. After reprising his role in the following year's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Banderas would next return to more adult oriented roles in both Brian DePalma's Femme Fatale and the ill-fated Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (both 2002). After essaying a more historic role in the dramatic biopic Frida (also 2002), the remarkably diverse actor would one again team with Rodriguez for the sprawling Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In 2004 he joined the highly successful Shrek franchise voicing Puss In Boots, and the character became so popular that he appeared in each of the following sequels, and was the subject of his own feature in 2011. In 2005 he played Zorro again, and he had a major part in the dance film Take the Lead. In 2011 he reteamed for the first time in two decades with Pedro Almodovar in the Hitchcock-inspired The Skin I Live In, and the next year he appeared as a mysterious international espionage figure in the action film Haywire. He appeared in a small role in Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013) and later appeared in The Expendables 3 (2014).

Trivia: One of Spain's foremost leading ladies of the 1990s, Penélope Cruz has managed to make her mark with international audiences as well. Born in Madrid on April 28, 1974, Cruz was one of three children of a merchant and a hairdresser. After years of intensive study in ballet and jazz, she broke into acting in 1992. That year, she had starring roles in Jamón Jamón and Belle Epoque, two very disparate films. The former cast her as the desperately poor daughter of a village prostitute, while the latter featured her as one of four lusty daughters of a wealthy man in pre-Franco Spain. Belle Epoque proved to be a huge success, winning nine Goya Awards (the Spanish equivalent of an Academy Award) and an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Its success gave Cruz a dose of international recognition, and after starring in a number of Spanish films, she enhanced this recognition in 1997 with the Sundance entry Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). That same year, she had a brief but memorable role in Pedro Almodóvar's Carne Trémula (Live Flesh). In 1998, Cruz had her first starring role in an English-language film, playing Billy Crudup's Mexican-American love interest in Stephen Frears' The Hi-Lo Country. She had another go at English later that year in the Spanish-British romantic comedy Twice Upon a Yesterday, which cast her as a Spanish barmaid living in London. In 1999, she returned to Spain to collaborate once again with Almodóvar on Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother), a wildly acclaimed film that premiered at Cannes that year.The next two years would prove to be a critical turning point in both Cruz's personal and professional life, with increasingly visible roles in large-scale Hollywood productions as well as a developing relationship with one Tinseltown's most popular leading men. Gaining notice for her roles in All the Pretty Horses in 2000 and Blow the following year, it appeared as if Cruz's career had suddenly kicked into overdrive. After starring alongside Nicolas Cage in the underperforming Captain Corelli's Mandolin in 2001, Cruz dove back into familiar territory with director Cameron Crowe's remake of Abre los Ojos, Vanilla Sky (2001). Developing a close relationship with lead Tom Cruise as his much publicized breakup with Nicole Kidman drew to a close, the pair soon found themselves the center of considerable paparazzi attention as they became Hollywood's hottest new couple.While "Cruz & Cruise" outlasted most celebrity couplings born on movie sets -- even generating wedding talk -- the duo went their separate ways in 2004. Perhaps not coincidentally, Cruz's career took a backseat to her paramour's while she was dating him; between 2001 and 2004, most of her roles were either minor ones in uncelebrated American indies (Waking Up in Reno, Masked and Anonymous, Noel) or meatier ones in foreign films that failed to gain traction in the States (Fanfan la Tulipe, Don't Move, Bandidas). Luckily, the actress rebounded with a performance thought by many critics to be the best of her career, when she re-teamed with one of her earliest champions, Pedro Almodóvar, for his nostalgic, bittersweet Volver in 2006. Warm, witty, and biting, Cruz's performance kept her name in the running for many year-end awards, even garnering her her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress.In 2008, Cruz earned strong reviews for her work in Elegy, but it was her turn in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona that garnered her Best Supporting Actress nods from the Hollywood Foreign Press, the Screen Actors Guild, and winning the trophy in that category from the Academy.She was nominated the next year for the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Oscar for her sexy supporting turn in Rob Marshall's big-screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Nine. Despite the film itself doing poorly, Cruz proved that she'd found a solid career trajectory as the 2010's progressed, appearing in projects like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Trivia: At the age of 15, auditioned for the singing show Tú sí que vales but was not selected to continue on the show.Studied with José Miguel Cerro, known as Chiqui de La Línea, a flamenco teacher and songwriter who only accepts one student per year.Worked as a singing teacher.In October 2018, released "Di Mi Nombre," her first number one song in Spain.Appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's 2019 film Pain and Glory.Was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2020 Grammy Awards, making her the first Spanish-language artist to be nominated in that category.

Trivia: Met her partner Consuelo Trujillo in 1986. The two have worked together in multiple projects like Doña Rosita la soltera and La casa de Bernarda Alba.Along with Consuelo, has won a Premio de la Unión for their respectives roles in the play Cuando deje de llover.Has worked with acclaimed Spanish directors like Pedro Almodóvar and Ramón Salazar.A well known and accomplished actress in her native Spain.Has worked as an LGBTQ rights activist.

Trivia: It might have been easy to write off American actor Warren Beatty as merely the younger brother of film star Shirley MacLaine, were it not for the fact that Beatty was a profoundly gifted performer whose creative range extended beyond mere acting. After studying at Northwestern University and with acting coach Stella Adler, Beatty was being groomed for stardom almost before he was of voting age, cast in prominent supporting roles in TV dramas and attaining the recurring part of the insufferable Milton Armitage on the TV sitcom Dobie Gillis. Beatty left Dobie after a handful of episodes, writing off his part as "ridiculous," and headed for the stage, where he appeared in a stock production of Compulsion and in William Inge's Broadway play A Loss of Roses.The actor's auspicious film debut occurred in Splendor in the Grass (1961), after which he spent a number of years being written off by the more narrow-minded movie critics as a would-be Brando. Both Beatty and his fans knew that there was more to his skill than that, and in 1965 Beatty sank a lot of his energy and money into a quirky, impressionistic crime drama, Mickey One (1965). The film was a critical success but failed to secure top bookings, though its teaming of Beatty with director Arthur Penn proved crucial to the shape of movie-making in the 1960s. With Penn again in the director's chair, Beatty took on his first film as producer/star, Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Once more, critics were hostile -- at first. A liberal amount of praise from fellow filmmakers and the word-of-mouth buzz from film fans turned Bonnie and Clyde into the most significant film of 1967 -- and compelled many critics to reverse their initial opinions and issue apologies. This isn't the place to analyze the value and influence Bonnie and Clyde had; suffice it to say that this one film propelled Warren Beatty from a handsome, talented film star into a powerful filmmaker.Picking and choosing his next projects very carefully, Beatty was offscreen as much as on from 1970 through 1975, though several of his projects -- most prominently McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and The Parallax View (1974) -- would be greeted with effusive praise by film critics and historians. In 1975, Beatty wrote his first screenplay, and the result was Shampoo (1975), a trenchant satire on the misguided mores of the late '60s. Beatty turned director for 1978's Heaven Can Wait, a delightful remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan that was successful enough to encourage future Hollywood bankrolling of Beatty's directorial efforts. In 1981, Beatty produced, directed, co-scripted and acted in Reds, a spectacular recounting of the Russian Revolution as seen through the eyes of American Communist John Reed. It was a pet project of Beatty's, one he'd been trying to finance since the 1970s (at that time, he'd intended to have Sergei Bondarchuk of War and Peace fame as director). Reds failed to win a Best Picture Academy Award, though Beatty did pick up an Oscar as Best Director. Nothing Beatty has done since Reds has been without interest; refusing to turn out mere vehicles, he has taken on a benighted attempt to re-spark the spirit of the old Hope-Crosby road movies (Ishtar [1984]); brought a popular comic strip to the screen, complete with primary colors and artistic hyperbole (Dick Tracy [1991]); and managed to make the ruthless gangster Bugsy Siegel a sympathetic visionary (Bugsy [1992]). In 1998 he was able to breath new life into political satire with Bulworth, his much acclaimed film in which he plays a disillusioned politician who turns to rap to express himself. In 2001, Beatty rekindled memories of Ishtar as he starred in another phenomenal bust, Town & Country. Budgeted at an astronomical 90 million dollars and earning a miserable 6.7 million dollars during it's brief theatrical run, Town & Country was released three years after completion and pulled from theaters after a mere four weeks, moving critics to rank it among the biggest flops in movie history.Fiercely protective of his private life, and so much an advocate of total control that he will dictate the type of film stock and lighting to be used when being interviewed for television, Beatty has nonetheless had no luck at all in keeping his many amours out of the tabloids. However, Beatty's long and well-documented history of high-profile romances with such actresses as Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, and Madonna came to an abrupt end upon his 1992 marriage to Bugsy co-star Annette Bening, with whom he later starred in 1994's Love Affair, his blighted remake of the 1957 An Affair to Remember.

Trivia: Splashing his colorful films across the dour post-Franco Spanish landscape with the irreverent glee of a prostitute arriving late to church after a long night, Pedro Almodóvar has been called the most influential Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel. Beginning in the 1980s, Almodóvar started serving up provocative, candy-colored visions fraught with postmodernist insight into everything from sex and violence to religion and the dangers of good gazpacho. Sometimes shocking, sometimes controversial, Almodóvar's films have always managed to present a new and intriguing view of his native country, shaping the attitudes of both his compatriots and a larger international audience.Born September 25, 1951, in Calzada de Calatrava, an impoverished hamlet of La Mancha, Almodóvar was raised in a traditional Spanish household. He studied with Salesian monks, sang in the choir, and generally felt like a misfit; he was later to remark that, for him, growing up in such an environment was tantamount to being an astronaut in King Arthur's court. At the age of 12, on seeing Richard Brooks' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Almodóvar decided to give purpose to his alienation, marking himself down for "a life of sin and degeneracy." As a teenager, Almodóvar was influenced by the films of such directors as Billy Wilder, Douglas Sirk, Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Blake Edwards, and neorealists Marco Ferreri and Fernando Fernán-Gómez; deciding to pursue a career as a filmmaker, he got out of La Mancha and headed to Madrid in 1969. Working at a phone company by day, he wrote short stories, mock newsreels, and spoof commercials at night, as he also made Super-8 shorts and one Super-8 feature. One of Almodóvar's stories, a dirty photo-novel he was commissioned to write for a fanzine in 1978, became his first feature film, the 1980 Pepi, Luci, Bom.... An outrageous sexual satire, the film delivered a happy slap to the face of Spanish society, which at the time still wallowed in Franco-style social intolerance. The film's campy, pop-art-colored hedonism and sexual vulgarity were mirrored two years later in Almodóvar's second effort, Labyrinth of Passion. Many Spanish critics, who had a bias toward the more "quality" films of the Spanish cinema establishment, reacted negatively to Almodóvar's work, labeling him too modern and superficial.The director reacted to such criticisms with Dark Habits (1983) and What Have I Done to Deserve This?! (1984). Although both films were comedies, they delved into more serious, complex subjects. Dark Habits presented a criticism of the Catholic Church through the story of a woman forced to hide out with a group of outrageous nuns, while What Have I Done to Deserve This?! was the tale of a housewife struggling to cope with the travails of everyday life. This latter theme of the downtrodden housewife would arise repeatedly in the director's work, as would other issues of female independence and solidarity. Almodóvar's subsequent films deepened his exploration of sexual desire and the sometimes brutal laws governing it. Matador (1986) offered up desire as a bridge between sexual attraction and death, presenting the viewer with a cornucopia of sexual options, including fetishism, gay and straight voyeurism, necrophilia, and female penetration. This variety was further explored in the aptly named Law of Desire (1987), which offered up similarly overt sexuality, as well as Antonio Banderas in his first starring role. Banderas also starred in Almodóvar's subsequent feature, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), which took a sharp and unfailingly amusing look at female sexuality and desire, and further established Almodóvar as a "women's director." It also earned its director international acclaim and 7.8 million dollars domestically, remaining the highest-grossing film in Spanish history for a decade.Following the success of Women, Almodóvar took a turn toward controversy with his next film. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) was the subject of heated stateside debate, thanks to its premise of a famous actress (Almodóvar muse Victoria Abril) falling in love with the man who kidnaps her and holds her hostage. Decried by feminists and women's advocacy groups, the film also received a negative reception among certain Spanish critics, who declared that Almodóvar had lost his sense of direction. Similar criticism was leveled at his two subsequent films, the family melodrama High Heels (1991) and Kika (1993). Like Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Kika incurred a certain amount of controversy in the States, thanks to a rape scene that was perceived as both misogynistic and exploitative.The director changed gears with his next effort, 1995's The Flower of My Secret. Starring Almodóvar regular Marisa Paredes as a pulp romance writer, the film was a psychological drama hailed by many as his most mature film to date. It also heralded a change in Almodóvar's portrayal of his male characters; rather than fashion the kind of clueless male protagonist often featured in his earlier films, Almodóvar created a more positive image of a "new man." Similar male characterization followed in his next film, Live Flesh (1997). Loosely based on a Ruth Rendell novel of the same name, the film explored love, loss, and suffering with a sober restraint only briefly glimpsed in the director's earlier work. Almodóvar then continued to work in more serious dramatic confines, directing All About My Mother in 1999. The story of a woman's search for her dead son's father, it revisited Almodóvar's familiar themes of the inherent force of sisterhood and the power of family, no matter how unconventional that family may be. Dedicated to Bette Davis, Romy Schneider, and Gena Rowlands, the film premiered to great acclaim at the 1999 Cannes Festival, where it won Almodóvar a Best Director prize. He enjoyed further success at the 2000 Golden Globes and Academy Awards ceremonies, both of which saw All About My Mother garner honors for Best Foreign Language Film.Two years later, Almodóvar hit another career high with Talk to Her, a melodrama as notable for its complex sexual politics as it was for its stylistic flourishes. The film, which revolved around two comatose women and the men who love them, was hailed by critics and embraced by arthouse audiences. However, certain plot points also revived charges of misogyny that had been leveled at the director for some of his earlier films (specifically Kika and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!). Despite such controversy, Almodóvar won numerous honors across the world for his film, including a French César for Best Film and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It had become clear by this point that Almodovar had no intentions of slowing down, and he would continue to garner awards and critical praise with films like Volver, Broken Embraces, and The Skin I Live In.

Trivia: Spanish cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine is best known in the U.S. for his work on Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 farce Mujeres en al Borde de un Ataque Nervious/Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In his native country, he is highly regarded for his ability to capture the Spanish soul with his lense. He learned his craft at the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografia in Madrid and began professionally in the early '70s. Notable efforts in Alcaine's extensive filmography include El Sur/The South (1983), Fernando Trueba's El Sueno de Mono Loco/The Dream of the Mad Monkey (1989), and Bigas Luna's Jamon, Jamon (1992).