Spanish actor Antonio Banderas said he felt "slightly bitter" after receiving his Best Actor Award at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for his performance in Pain and Glory , due to the absence of Pedro Almodovar at charts.
>>> THE ESSENTIAL - Cannes Film Festival: Golden Palm for Parasite, Korean Bong Joon-ho
"I wish Pedro were here"
"After receiving this award, I am very happy, but I feel a bit bitterness, I would have liked Pedro to be here", at his side at a press conference, he said. Instead, Almodovar, who was seeking for the sixth time the Palme d'Or, was not granted. "We exchanged text messages this morning and he is very happy for me and I thank him for these 40 years and 8 films we made together," continued Banderas.
"He had a very important role in my life, a role I can not understand, I'm very attached to him," he added to the filmmaker's place he considers his " mentor".
"I felt like I was going to faint"
In Pain and Glory, a vibrant declaration of love in the cinema, Banderas embodies the double of Almodovar, a director in the midst of an existential crisis and in the middle of a creative void, whom he interprets with a sobriety that was little known to him.
Asked about the emotion he felt at the statement of his name for the Award of Interpretation, he said that "going on stage was not great news for my cardiologist, I felt that I was going to faint. Antonio Banderas, 58, had suffered a serious heart attack two years ago.