Working at small theaters.................Pedro A. to Brad Pitt..............to Quentin T.'s whole Mexican guitar player............killer overlay...........Salma Hayek and snake dances............."the Game"...........with Mike Douglas.........(remember "Romancing the Stone"..)...........part of it was set in Mexicali, Mexico..............the 1960s Jack Nicholson..............Chinatown..............."this is Chinatown Jake"..........Mexicalli's nearby Cierro Preto volcano................a favorite place to go underground...........i bet the tunnels under DC were here before the Americans built DC............at least some of them.............my 1st wife............said that the Chinese had cities under Mexicali.........and the Chinese there were descendants of the railroad workers.......

Early work, 1982–90[edit]

Banderas began working in small theatres during Spain's post-dictatorial cultural movement known as the 'Movida'.^[5] While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his 1982 movie debut Labyrinth of Passion. Five years later, he went on to appear in the director's Law of Desire, making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodóvar's 1986 Matador, the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when he starred in Almodóvar's controversial Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love.^[4] It was his breakthrough role in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, that helped spur him on to Hollywood.^[6] Banderas' having become a regular feature of Almodóvar's movies all throughout the 1980s, Almodóvar is credited for helping launch Banderas's international career.^[7]

Breakthrough, 1991–94[edit]

In 1991, Madonna introduced Banderas to Hollywood in Truth or Dare. In the movie, Madonna says that she wants to seduce Banderas, even though she knows he is married. The following year, still speaking minimal English, he began acting in U.S. films. Despite having to learn all his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician in his first American drama film, The Mambo Kings (1992).^{[citation needed]}

Banderas then broke through to mainstream American audiences in the film, Philadelphia (1993), as the lover of AIDS-afflicted lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks). The film's success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year he was given a role in Neil Jordan's high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, sharing the screen with Brad Pitt.^[4]