Banderas In '3-D' And Beyond

Even though his part is quite small, Antonio Banderas was thrilled to reprise his role as Gregorio Cortez in the latest installment of the "Spy Kids" movie series.

This is the Spanish-born actor's sixth movie with director Robert Rodriguez. Not only have they worked together on the previous "Spy Kids" films, but also in "Desperado," "Four Rooms," and the upcoming "Once Upon a Time in Mexico."

Banderas visits The Early Show on Friday to tell us why he is so excited about "Spy Kids 3-D."

Of course, "Spy Kids" is not the only project that Banderas has going on right now. He's currently starring in the smash success Broadway musical "Nine," for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. After singing in eight shows a week since "Nine" opened in April, Banderas recently announced that he'll be leaving the show on Oct. 5 (initially, there was talk that he'd leave even earlier, but he decided to stay with the show until October because of the fan response to his performance).

He hasn't missed a single performance since the curtain was first raised, and leaving the show is bittersweet for him. He says he plans on making it to every single performance for the rest of the run, because he wants to show audiences that he's not there "just to make an appearance. I'm going to be professional until the end, until the moment that I leave."

Perhaps not too ironically, Banderas' departure from "Nine" coincides with his wife Melanie Grifith's final bow as Roxie Hart in the musical "Chicago" at the Ambassador Theater, which is directly across the street from the Eugene O'Neill, where "Nine" is playing.

And there are a lot more projects on the horizon. Banderas has wrapped production on "Imagining Argentina," based on the 1987 novel of the same name and co-starring Emma Thompson. Banderas plays an Argentine playwright in late 1970s Buenos Aires "blessed" with the psychic ability to see the locations of the missing loved ones of people by looking at their faces. But when his own wife, an activist/journalist played by Thompson, disappears, he finds he can't use his powers on himself.

And"Once Upon a Time in Mexico," the final chapter of Robert Rodriguez's trilogy that started with his debut, "El Mariachi," and continued with "Desperado," also stars Banderas. The feature wrapped almost two years ago and it's expected that it will finally be released this fall.

Banderas is also starring in the title role in HBO's upcoming "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself," a biography of the Mexican revolutionary who, in the early 1900s, allowed movie producers D.W. Griffith and Harry Aiken to film him in battle in exchange for money to help fund his rebel forces. The HBO film focuses on a very short time of Villa's life from December 1913 through May 1914, then jumps forward to his death in 1923.

Finally, Banderas is currently filming work as one of the voices in Shrek II; he plays Puss in Boots.