53-year-old Spy Kids and The Mask of Zorro actor Antonio Banderas has told Peru’s Canal N TV that he doesn’t understand people who are opposed to homosexuality – saying they seem like the unhealthy ones to him.
‘Those who judge gay couples in an intolerant way, they seem to me to be much more sick,’ Banderas said.
Gay people on the other hand, ‘absolutely do not appear to me to be sick,’ he said.
Banderas got his break in movies when he was cast in a small role in openly gay Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s 1982 movie Labyrinth of Passion and the director brought him back for a bigger role in his 1987 gay themed movie Law of Desire.
Banderas reflected on that role to Canal N, saying that it still struck him how the film’s gay themes had been more controversial than the murder in the film.
‘The murder was fine, it’s something accepted from an artistic point of view,’ Banderas said.
‘But two people of the same sex kissing on screen generated a wave of contradictions at the time.’
Earlier this month Banderas said he was ‘absolutely in favor of same-sex marriage,’ and said he was hopeful the Catholic Church could evolve on LGBTI issues under Pope Francis I.
‘I think right now the church is inching closer to reality every day. And I think a Latin American pope is making giant steps,’ Banderas said.
Banderas separated from his first wife Ana Leza in May of 1995 and has been in a relationship with actress Melanie Griffith since then.
