Pedro Almodóvar’s upcoming The Skin I Live In, which debuted to mixed response at Cannes and stars Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya, follows a haunted plastic surgeon as he experiments with synthetic skin on a mysterious woman (the trailer is posted below).
This film marks a reunion between Banderas and Almodóvar. The actor made his breakthrough in Almodóvar’s films in the 1980s, but last worked with the Spanish director in 1990’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and despite being offered a part in 1991’s Kika, he embarked on a Hollywood career. Banderas tells The New Yorker’s Richard Brody that his reunion with Almodovar was as dramatic and tense as their films:
He had created me. I was in a way his thing. He saw my departure like a betrayal. He needed some time before he could forgive me.
Almodóvar’s method differs from other directors who prefer to work with a set, if rotating, cast, writes Brody:
Fassbinder liked to work with a regular group of actors and technicians, he encouraged them to find their independence and make a career apart from him—and that it was they who felt rejected and betrayed by his unfamilial attitude.
The Skin I Live In will be screened at the New York Film Festival in October. Here is TOH’s interview with Banderas, also pasted below.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
