Americans first started noticing Antonio Banderas in a 1988 film called Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
This dark comedy from Spain played to great acclaim in the United States.
Its director, Pedro Almodovar, became internationally known, as did Banderas, a star of this and other AlmodOvar films. The actor has since come to Hollywood to be a leading man in such American films as Desperado (1995).
That film was directed by Robert Rodriguez, a Hispanic American from Texas who made his name with the Spanish-language film El Mariachi (1992).
