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‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ (Photo: DreamWorks\/Universal)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\nin a 2017 Role Recall<\/em> interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Salma Hayek mused that the 2011 animated hit Puss in Boots<\/em> <\/em>\u2014 in which she voiced the titular feline hero’s feisty rival\/love interest Kitty Softpaws \u2014 marked the first time Hollywood hired her for her Mexican accent, not shunning her for it.<\/p>\nNeedless to say, Hayek, 56, was eager to reprise the role of Kitty in the inevitable sequel to the Shrek <\/em>spin-off that grossed more than $550 million. But then she waited… and waited… and waited. \u201cWe were hoping this would happen for over a decade, Antonio and I,\u201d she told us in a recent interview, referring of course to Antonio Banderas, whose swashbuckling tabby cat with those impossibly swoon eyes first stole the show in 2004’s Shrek II. <\/em>\u201cBecause they told us the first movie was a huge success.\u201d<\/p>\nThere were a couple false starts, to the point where Hayek said it felt like The Boy Who Cried Wolf <\/em>any time they would hear the sequel was in motion again.<\/p>\nSo what took so long for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish<\/em> to finally hit theaters this week? The follow-up to How to Train Your Dragon<\/em> \u2014 another DreamWorks animated series, for example \u2014 came out four years later, with a third installment five years after that.<\/p>\nThere were a variety of reasons for the long gestation, Banderas says. DreamWorks changed hands, from Paramount to Universal, in 2016. There were changes at director (Guillermo del Toro was even among those temporarily onboard) before Joel Crawford eventually stepped in. There was a pandemic in 2020, maybe you’ve heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I suppose that actually has to do also with a scare that I had in 2017, in which I almost lost my life,\u201d Banderas told us in a recent interview. In January of that year, the now-62year-old Spanish-born actor performed a heart attack. In seemingly fine health at the time, he was rushed to the hospital and later underwent surgery to have three stents implanted into his coronary arteries. (He has since called the health scare \u201cone of the best things that’s happened in my life\u201d for changing his perspective on what’s most important to him.)<\/p>\n
Story continues<\/button><\/p>\nFittingly then, and perhaps not so coincidentally, The Last Wish<\/em> centers around the mortality of its hero. When Puss is killed in action in the early goings (you may want to warn the kiddos), he’s told in the afterlife that he has one of his nine lives left. This eventually sends Puss on an adventure, joined by Kitty and scene-stealing newcomer Perrito (Harvey Guill\u00e9n) to the find the mystical \u201cLast Wish\u201d in hopes Puss can restore his lives lost.<\/p>\n\u201cIt’s very daring, actually, that a movie that is for young people just reflects [on] these issues openly, in a very elegant way, and very carefully, too,\u201d Banderas says. \u201cI think it’s a beautiful proposal because it’s done beautifully. I was surprised that we were going there. But if there’s [any] character that can do it, it’s Puss in Boots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hayek says the 11-year interval between movies \u201cwas worth waiting for the right situation,\u201d pointing to Crawford. \u201cThe right 400 people involved, because that’s what it takes to make one of these movies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n