Antonio Banderas

image via: theantoniobanderas.com

Antonio Banderas was supposed to be a football star instead of a movie star. However he had an injury and had to leave his soccer career. He started taking roles in the movies of Spain’s one of the most critically acclaimed directors, Pedro Almodovar. Then he also started to get both leading and supporting roles in Hollywood productions as well. Banderas always played Hispanic or Mediterranean characters. After all, his English accent was too heavy for him to play a native. But Banderas never needed to play a British character anyway. He had his own profitable niche: he played the passionate Latin lover, the Latin avenger or both. He co-starred with many talented actresses and shot some very steamy scenes with them. His co-stars include Jennifer Connelly, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah,  Meg Ryan, Catherine Zeta- Jones, Rebecca De Mornay, Angelina Jolie, Laura Linney, Salma Hayek, Lucy Liu and more. Of these actresses, Antonio Banderas starred with Melanie Griffith and Daryl Hannah in the same movie, a romantic comedy called Two Much in 1995. He played a guy who got two sisters into thinking that he had an identical twin brother and started dating them both. Although he ended up with Daryl’s character in the film, in real life he fell for Melanie Griffith and the two got married in 1996.

James Spader

image: scrapetv.com

James Spader managed to have a very diverse career in mostly original, controversial and intriguing films. His heartthrob status in the 80s and 90s faded into the 21st century, as James got a little older and put on some weight. However, he still continues to take parts in projects he believes in, including TV. His TV series Boston Legal (2004- 2008) was an edgy and funny legal comedy/drama where he played a hotshot lawyer with the most unconventional personality, trial tactics and attitude. His Boston Legal character Alan Shore’s as politically incorrect is not as Gregory House or Patrick Jane. James got many nominations & awards for his performance, including 2 Emmy wins. However before Boston Legal, James already had had many interesting roles: he played a back-stabbing editor who was sleeping with his mentor’s wife and later turning into a werewolf (Wolf), a guy whose sister’s boyfriends sets their house on fire, a man video-taping women talking about their most intimate sexual experiences (Sex, Lies and Videotape), a man turned on by car crashes (Crash), an FBI agent who a serial killer has turned into an obsession (The Watcher), a young advertising executive who falls for a woman who is “a little” older than him (White Palace) and more.