Antonio Banderas in Hollywood

Antonio Banderas appeared in several major Hollywood releases in 1995, including a starring role in the Robert Rodriguez-directed film Desperado and the antagonist on the action film Assassins, co-starred with Sylvester Stallone. In 1996, he starred alongside Madonna in Evita, an adaptation of the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and in Tim Rice in which he played the narrator, Che, a role played by David Essex in the original 1978 West End production. He also made success with his role as the legendary masked swordsman Zorro in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro.

Antonio Banderas

In 2001, Antonio Banderas collaborated with Robert Rodriguez who cast him in the Spy Kids film trilogy. He also starred in Michael Cristofer's Original Sin alongside Angelina Jolie the same year. In 2002, he starred in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale opposite Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and in Julie Taymor's Frida with Salma Hayek. In 2003, he starred in the last installment of the trilogy Once Upon A Time In Mexico (in which he appeared with Johnny Depp and Salma Hayek). Antonio Banderas' debut as a director was the poorly-received Crazy in Alabama (1999), starring his wife Melanie Griffith.

In 2003, Antonio Banderas returned to the musical genre, appearing to great acclaim in the Broadway revival of Maury Yeston's musical Nine, based on the film 8½, playing the prime role originated by the late Raúl Juliá. Antonio Banderas won both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for best actor in a musical. His performance is preserved on the Broadway cast recording released by PS Classics. The following year (2004), he received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA).

Antonio Banderas

His voice role as Puss in Boots in Shrek 2, Shrek the Third and the last film in the Shrek franchise, Shrek Forever After, helped make the character popular on the family film circuit. In 2005, he reprised his role as Zorro in The Legend of Zorro, though this was not as successful as The Mask of Zorro. In 2006, he starred in Take the Lead, a high-set movie in which he played a ballroom dancing teacher. That year, he directed his second film El camino de los ingleses (English title: Summer Rain), and also received the L.A. Latino International Film Festival's "Gabi" Lifetime Achievement Award on 14 October. He hosted the 600th episode of Saturday Night Live (during season 31).

Antonio Banderas received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 6801 Hollywood Blvd. in 2005. In 2011, the horror thriller The Skin I Live In marked the return of Banderas to Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish director who launched his international career. The two had not worked together since 1990 (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!). In The Skin I Live In he breaks out of the Latin Lover mold from his Hollywood work and stars as a calculating revenge-seeking plastic surgeon following the rape of his daughter. According to the Associated Press Banderas' performance is among his strongest in recent memory. He again lent his voice to Puss in Boots, this time as the protagonist of the Shrek spin-off family film, Puss in Boots. This film reunited Antonio Banderas  with Salma Hayek for the sixth time.