Award-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem says he owes a lot to paisano Antonio Banderas for opening doors in the U.S. for Spanish actors like him.

“People like me have to thank Antonio Banderas for what he did when he took the step of coming to the United States. It’s not easy at all to pacck your bags and come to a foreign country to create a career for yourself when you don’t even speak the language.”

The niceties were spoken at a New York Times talk last week, where Javi went so far as to call out the Spanish actors who criticized Banderas’ decision to come to the U.S. to work:

“Few people want to recognize the work that Antonio had to do. In Spain we are very protective of our own [people] but there are people who can be very mean at the same time.”

According to the actor, “those who criticized Banderas, for example, are people who would sweat blood when they had to say one line in English,” though he didn’t mention any actor or actress by name.

Ooh, tell us who!

While Bardem may be right about opening doors, the fact is that Antonio Banderas was an excellent actor while he was in Spain. I’m not sure what happened after he came here. Let’s hope the same doesn’t happen to Bardem, but if his performance in No Country for Old Men is any indication, we have nothing to worry about.

Via / 20 Minutos