25 Things You Didn’t Know About Interview With The Vampire
14. The Movie Made Antonio Banderas’ Hollywood Career
The elder vampire Armand is a little different in the novel - turned in his teens, he’s a red-headed Russian. But when you can cast Antonio Banderas, you cast Antonio Banderas.
He’d made his name back in Spain as the muse for celebrated auteur Pedro Almodóvar, but in 1994 Hollywood was only just waking up to Banderas’ appeal. He’d had actually auditioned for the role of Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s gloriously overheated 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, losing the part to Gary Oldman.
It might have been something to do with the language barrier, because back then Banderas couldn’t speak a word of English. Cast in The Mambo Kings that same year over the studio’s objections, he kept it from the film’s producers at first, learning his lines phonetically.
According to his longtime agent, Emanuel ‘Manny’ Nunez, while Banderas’ small supporting role in the Oscar-winning Philadelphia got his foot in the door in America, it was Interview With The Vampire that boosted his profile and his asking price, which led to Robert Rodriguez casting him in Desperado.
Rodriguez took him with him to The Mask Of Zorro - and although Martin Campbell ended up actually making the movie, Banderas remained attached. The film became Banderas’ first major hit as a Hollywood headliner, cementing his career and making him a genuine star.
And it never would have happened if he hadn’t stood shoulder to shoulder - and smoulder to smoulder - with Brad Pitt in Interview With The Vampire.