Overview
- Speaking in a Times interview published Wednesday, the Spanish actor said executives told him Spaniards, Black people and Hispanics were only there to play villains.
- He cited 1998’s The Mask of Zorro as proof he could lead as the hero opposite a white antagonist.
- He said voicing Puss in Boots matters most for children who hear a Spanish, even Andalusian, accent on a clear-cut hero.
- After a near-fatal heart attack in 2017, he quit smoking, sold his private jet, left a US‑UK lifestyle, and moved home to Málaga to build his Teatro del Soho.
- He now lives in Málaga with partner Nicole Kimpel, runs a not‑for‑profit theatre he says fights Spain’s old inferiority complex, and describes this life as his happiest.