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A16 | NEWS O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| THURSDAY,OCTOBER24,

I

nPain and Glory, actor Anto-
nio Banderas gets to play the
director – sort of. The new
film from renowned Spanish au-
teur Pedro Almodovar is a semi-
autobiographical drama that
casts Banderas as an ailing film
director who is rescued from cre-
ative block by figures from his
past. The actor attended the To-
ronto International Film Festival
in September, where he spoke
about this latest reunion with Al-
modovar. The pair worked to-
gether at the beginning of their
careers in Spain in the 1980s,
separated creatively for two dec-
ades when Banderas moved to
Hollywood, and then reunited
for 2011’sThe Skin I Live In.

What was your reaction when
Almodovar approached you to
play this role so close to his own
life?

My first reaction had to do with
trust, and gratitude. When some-
body calls you to just play him,
it’s very unusual and at the same
time very flattering: He trusts
me. And immediately, in a paral-
lel line, was panic: Oh my God,
how am I going to approach this
character?

He said you could imitate him?

I didn’t like that. The danger of
becoming a caricature was enor-
mous. He provided me already
with his hair, with his costumes,
with an exact reproduction of
his apartment in Madrid. That
was enough.
I said, allow me to do this
character from the inside out.
Let’s just start working from
scratch. He said okay. That was
very important for me. I have
been telling this story: I started
doing this character here in To-
ronto ...

How was that?

For 22 years I didn’t work with
Pedro and I arrived to rehearsals
[forThe Skin I Live In] and I was
bringing all the experiences that
I had in America. I said, look, I
have all these new tools; I can do

this, I can do that. After a week

of rehearsing he said, “You know,

Antonio, those tools you got

from America, they may be very

useful for you and your Amer-

ican director, but where are

you?”

And, at the Toronto festival, I

saw the movie for the first time

in front of an audience and sud-

denly I saw he was capable of

bringing out of me a character I

didn’t know I had inside. Imme-

diately I thought, I have to be

more humble. I have to listen to

the people I trust and admire. I

was wishing he would call me

again. So when he did call me

back [forPain and Glory] I said

“Listen, I am a soldier.”

A soldier?

I’m not a general, with all the

medals. In those nine years,

many things had happened. I got

a divorce [from actor Melanie

Griffith]. I had a heart attack.

There are a number of things

that made me reflect on life in a

different way. [I said] “Pedro: We

are getting older; there is only

space for truth in our lives, so

let’s try to do something in that

space.”

He said to me, “After your

heart attack, there is something

in you that I want to expose, to

use it in the character, if it’s okay

with you.” I said “Absolutely, I

know what you are talking

about.”

You still work regularly in English;

you and Gary Oldman are playing

corrupt business lawyers inThe

Laundromat. So, talking about

Hollywood tricks, do you prefer

working in Spanish?

I learned English when I was 31

years old; I will always have an

accent. The attachment you have

with words is different. It’s very

easy to say “I love you” or “I hate

you” because you don’t have a

history with that. So, you detach

emotionally in a different coun-

try and you learn bad words and

you just drop them – and every-

body is, “Oh, wow.” I can use

those things to my advantage. It

created a kind of exotic way of

acting that was different.

It depends on the project. In

The Laundromat, I didn’t under-

stand any of it, that financial

stuff. Gary [Oldman] told me:

“Just say the lines.” InPain and

Glory, I think my character is

much more made in the silent

moments.

It’s a brave performance; the

character is grumpy, narcissistic,

deeply privileged but unaware of

it. Who decided he would be

unattractive?

Both of us. Making him attrac-

tive was not a priority, not even

on the books. The character is

sick, self-centred; it’s not until a

certain point in the story you

discover he is taking steps to

close things that were left open

in his past. He gets the capacity

for being able to say, forgive me.

Pedro would never say that, he

would never say “forgive me.”

There are things he recognized

in himself and put in the charac-

ter. When I read the script for the

first time, I could not believe

that he was just so confessional.

Are we the things we have

done and the things that we

have said, or are we also the

things we would have loved to

say but never said, the things we

wanted to do but never did? Pe-

dro took a step ahead in this mo-

vie to do those things. That is

where the movie becomes emo-

tional. We all have backpacks full

of miseries, regrets; people relate

to that.

This interview has been edited and

condensed.

Pain and Gloryopens Oct. 25 in

Toronto and Ottawa.

AntonioBanderasexploresthe‘spacefortruth’

Theactordiscusseshisdeeplypersonalnewproject

withfrequentcollaboratorPedroAlmodovar,

thedifferencesofactinginhisnativelanguageand

usinghisownrecenthardshipstofuelhiswork

KATETAYLOR

AntonioBanderas,

seeninMay,playsan

ailingfilmmakerin

PedroAlmodovar’s

semi-autobiographical

dramaPainandGlory,

andacorruptbusiness

lawyerinSteven

Soderbergh’s

TheLaundromat.

BRYNN ANDERSON/

ASSOCIATED PRESS

G

rowing up in Lumby, B.C.,
Sharona Franklin decorat-
ed her bedroom with pho-
tos from glossy fashion maga-
zines and dreamed about work-
ing in fashion. So when a contro-
versy erupted this month over a
dispute with an international de-
sign house, her family couldn’t
help but note the irony.
“My little sister, she called me
and said: ‘It’s so weird because
you had Gucci stuff on your
walls,’ ” Franklin recalled this
week.
Weird is one word for what has
happened. Franklin, who now
lives in social housing on Van-
couver’s Downtown Eastside, is a
32-year-old multidisciplinary art-
ist who makes edible art: labo-
rious and intricate Jell-O mould-
type creations. She has an Insta-
gram account where she show-
cases the jelly art. In May, she

said, she was contacted through

Instagram by a design firm in

London asking if she would be in-

terested in creating work for a

“large Italian fashion house” –

Gucci, as it turns out. Franklin

signed a non-disclosure agree-

ment, and e-mails were sent back

and forth. There was a discussion

about when she could fly to Italy.

She said she told them about the

supplies she uses and offered

some information about how she

makes the pieces.

Then, silence. Following inqui-

ries from Franklin, the London

design firm, Simmonds Ltd., told

her that due to budget con-

straints, they were going to go

with someone in Europe instead,

indicating that they had been

speaking to a few people about

the jelly concept.

“We didn’t discuss a budget,”

Franklin said this week. “I kind of

trusted them.”

When the Gucci 2020 Cruise

campaign emerged, Franklin

started hearing from friends and

curators about the similarities be-

tween the images the luxury

brand was using and her own jelly

art.

But Franklin didn’t think there

was anything she could do, espe-

cially since she had signed the

NDA. “I just felt really defeated

and confused by it. I just didn’t

understand why they didn’t hire

me if they wanted that look.”

Other people began posting

about it, calling out Gucci. A

childhood friend and another

Vancouver-based artist started a

change.org petition titled “Get

GUCCI to make amends with Dis-

abled Creatives and for plagiariz-

ing Sharona!” The petition alleg-

es “targeted theft of a disabled

artist.”

As of Wednesday, it had more

than 3,300 signatures.

Particularly galling to Franklin

is Gucci’s Changemakers cam-

paign, meant to promote diversi-

ty in the industry. Franklin says

diversity should go beyond skin

colour.

Born in Vernon, B.C., Franklin

suffers from a number of condi-

tions, including juvenile idio-

pathic arthritis. When she was

about 18, she moved to Vancouv-

er so she could access services at

the acclaimed GF Strong Rehabil-

itation Centre. She now lives on

disability payments and says she

receives daily antibody injections

and a weekly low-grade dose of

chemotherapy.

Since the controversy came to

light, she said, she has heard from

several lawyers who have offered

to represent her pro bono. As of

Wednesday, she had not heard

from Gucci.

In an e-mailed statement to

The Globe and Mail, Gucci says it

has used brightly coloured jellies

by different artists and chefs in

the past.

“Each selection process ... con-

sists of a series of phases before

an artist is chosen for a collabora-

tion. We do not always proceed

with every artist we approach for

consideration. ... We nonetheless

have the highest respect and ap-

preciation for the creativity of all

of the artists we consider, even if

they are not selected for a collab-

oration.”

Vancouverartistandherediblecreationsatthecentreofafashion-housecontroversy

SharonaFranklin,above,

isamultidisciplinaryartist

livinginVancouver’s

DowntownEastside

whomakesintricatejelly

sculptures.Friendsand

curatorshavepointedout

thatimagesusedinthe

Gucci2020Cruisecampaign

bearresemblanceto

Franklin’swork.INSTAGRAM

MARSHALEDERMAN