Antonio Banderas, after performing before Leo XIV: “He radiates a mixture of humility and wisdom that moves”

The actor and director Antonio Banderas has assured that Pope Leo XIV has “exceeded expectations” in his visit to Madrid and that the city “has devoted itself to him.”

“My impression is very favorable. Seeing him in person, he radiates a mixture of humility and wisdom that is moving. Despite the fact that he has a great gestural economy,” Banderas added in statements to Europa Press after his participation in the ‘Weaving networks’ event that took place this Sunday at the Movistar Arena.

Thus, the man from Malaga has valued the Pontiff as “a capable, accurate, cultured man, with great emotional intelligence and courage.” “He seems to me to be a providential leader for these times, someone with an incredible ability to connect with reality and put the focus on the most vulnerable,” he added.

Although the moment that Banderas shared with the Pope was “short”, the actor has assured that Leo XIV had time to tell him that he had liked his speech and the performance that his musical company ‘Godspell’ starred in at the Vigil with the young people on Saturday.

“My close moment with him was short. He only had time to say that he had liked the content of my speech and also what the boys from the Godspell company did on Saturday at the vigil with the young people. I told him that it had been very exciting for them to sing and act for him and I told him that I would convey his message to them,” he explained.

Banderas wanted, in his speech, “a trip back” to his childhood in Malaga, to the Holy Week processions and the “echo of the saetas.” “Those moments when, as a child of four or five years old, that first uncomfortable, beautiful and profound question about transcendence and faith awoke in me,” he said.

Thus, he has ended up defending that “art is not only beauty”, but rather “question, reflection, contrast and revolution” and that, above all, it must be “an alternative to violence – to all violence -“.

“Historically, the Church has been the greatest producer of art in the history of humanity, serving as a space of inspiration. Just as Christ did, the artist must act with courage and never abandon his role as a critical instance of society, of art itself and of religion itself. We are obliged to look, see and try to understand the complexities of the human soul,” he concluded.