For Banderas, playing Puss in ‘Shrek 2’ was the cat’s pajamas

Antonio Banderas moves easily from the adult to the children’s film world.

Grown-ups know the 44-year-old Spanish actor for his work with director Pedro Almodovar in such controversial films as “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” But thanks to the popular “Spy Kids” series, Banderas has become family-friendly.

He further solidified his young fan base in this year’s No. 1 movie, “Shrek 2,” now out on DVD. Spoofing his heroic image from “The Mask of Zorro,” Banderas steals the film as the voice of the swashbuckling orange tabby, Puss in Boots, who is hired to murder Shrek and Donkey and ends up becoming their faithful friend.

He was on Broadway last year in the revival of the musical “Nine,” for which he received a Tony nomination, when he recorded his lines for “Shrek 2.”

Banderas, married to actress Melanie Griffith, is a charmer in person – down-to-earth and funny – and though he’s lived in Hollywood for a decade, he hasn’t lost his strong Spanish accent.

Q: Do you have cats?

A: We have two cats in the house. One of them is not a Siamese, but it is a Chinese something, and the other one is a very normal cat, a street cat.

Cats are very independent animals. I like to observe them, I like the way they move, I like the way they perceive things.

Dogs are very warm and beautiful, but they humiliate themselves in order to obtain. That is something which cats don’t do.

Q: Puss in Boots has a rather high opinion of himself

A: He thinks he’s Zorro. But he isn’t. Zorro is me – stupid cat! But that’s what produces the comedy with him.

Q: So it must have been fun to spoof Zorro in “Shrek 2.”

A: The possibility of laughing at yourself is very healthy nowadays. What I found when I did this work was I was absolutely surprised by the process. Not only did we get to ad-lib, it was demanded we do that. We were demanded to improvise, to bring our own input into the character.

In fact, we had a script, but it was an excuse, a pretext to start working. They may ask you, “What do you think your character would do when Donkey says that line? Would you take up your sword or hide behind the tree? What would you do?”

Q: Did you come up with the hairball cough?

A: That was already there, but I was singing 14 songs a night (in “Nine”) and I had to do it for 45 minutes, and that night I couldn’t hit the C notes.

Q: Was it difficult to do your lines without the other actors present?

A: It would have been more challenging to me if I had to have worked with Eddie Murphy or Mike Myers because they are very strong comedy actors. They are very fast, so I would have been intimidated. I would prefer to be alone in the room – you can be as crazy as you want.

Q: Did your 8-year-old daughter, Stella, like Puss?

A: Absolutely. She loves the movies, and she loved the first “Shrek.” She loved the second one the same way, but she’s almost like a good critic. She loved the character, but I think she generally forgets that papi is the one who is putting the voice to the character. When I went to Spain, my nephews made me say those lines 30 times in five minutes.

The birthday bunch

Actor Ed Asner is 75. Singer Petula Clark is 72. Actor Sam Waterston is 64. Singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad (ABBA) is 59. Actress Beverly D’Angelo is 50. Bandleader Kevin Eubanks (“The Tonight Show With Jay Leno”) is 47. Rapper ODB (Wu-Tang Clan) is 36. Country singer Jack Ingram is 34.