Tie Me Down! In , Banderas made his American film debut with the musical drama The Mambo Kings , followed by roles in Philadelphia , Interview with the Vampire , Assassins , and Evita He made his directorial debut with the comedy film Crazy in Alabama , followed by Summer Rain On stage, Banderas made his Broadway theatre debut playing an Italian film director in the musical revival Nine , for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
His work in the theater and his performances on the streets eventually landed him a spot with the Spanish National Theatre. Five years later, he went on to appear in the director's comedic thriller Law of Desire , making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss.
Martinez and Mr. The director cast him in his internationally acclaimed film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Rita Kemply of The Washington Post described Banderas' performance as "warm" and described the film as a "glossy delight. In , Madonna introduced Banderas to Hollywood. He was an object of her desires in her pseudodocumentary film of one of her concert tours, Madonna: Truth or Dare.
Despite having to learn all his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician in his first American drama film, The Mambo Kings Banderas then broke through to mainstream American audiences in the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia as the life partner of lawyer Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.
Also in , he acted in the Bille August -directed The House of the Spirits , an adaptation of the Isabel Allende novel of the same name. The film was a financial success. The camera loves this velvet stud as much as it did the young Clint Eastwood. That same year, Banderas portrayed the antagonist in the Richard Donner -directed action film Assassins , co-starring opposite Sylvester Stallone and Julianne Moore. Roger Ebert praised the onscreen chemistry between the two leads, writing, "The best scenes in the movie are between Banderas and Zeta-Jones, who share chemistry and, it turns out, a sense of justice.
