ET spoke to the pair at the 'Official Competition' red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday.
Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz are back together again! ET's Rachel Smith spoke to the pair at the premiere of their new movie, Official Competition, at the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday, where they dished on reuniting, Banderas' role in Indiana Jones and more.
"It was good, because I think the admiration is mutual," Banderas said of getting to share the screen opposite Cruz again -- their first time was in 2013's I'm So Excited. "We have been friends from a long time ago. I love her work. She's very good in comedy, that is a side of her that American people didn't see so much, but I knew, because I saw her earlier movies in Spain -- Jamon, Jamon, La Nina."
He continued, "She was fabulous as a comedy actress. She's very fast, she's very ingenious, and she has a fantastic rhythm. So, just to be in front of her, you know, one of the biggest problems that we had in the movie, was that we have to interrupt some of the scenes because we were laughing all the time, so it was great."
It was just as monumental for Cruz, who told ET that the pair have actually known each other for almost 30 years after meeting in New York as neighbors.
"In that movie with Pedro, we only had one scene together and it was all improvised," Cruz said of their work in I'm So Excited. "And then in the other film we did with Pedro, Pain and Glory, I played his mother in flashbacks, so also no scenes together."
"We know each other for almost 30 years," She added. "We met here in New York. We were neighbors."
While they've only acted together in two films, Cruz said after Official Competition, it felt like they had done at least ten because they know each other so well.
"So, when we did this movie, it felt like we had done 10 movies together before because we know each other so well," Cruz gushed.
In the film, Banderas and Cruz star as two egomaniacs commissioned by a millionaire to make a movie together. As far as who they drew inspiration from for the part, they each said they pieced together their characters of Félix and Lola like a "Frankenstein."
"I think I made kind of a Frankenstein with different behaviors of different people that I have met," Banderas shared. "Things that I have seen, things that I have heard."
Neither would name names, with Cruz adding that she took inspiration from personalities from across Hollywood.
"I cannot give you names," Cruz said when asked if she took inspiration for her character from people she's worked with. "I took good things from them, and also, difficult personalities. It's not normal to find somebody like, Lola, but I also took inspiration from other artists, not in our industry and I did my own little Frankenstein with all these."
In addition to Official Competition, Banderas is gearing up for a different kind of adventure in the next installment of the Indiana Jones saga. While he couldn't say much, he did share the awe-inspiring feeling he had when he first stepped on set.
"First day I got to makeup early, somebody knocks on the door, I look back and he says, 'Hey' and he was Indiana Jones with his wig, the hat, the whole thing," Banderas said of meeting the OG Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, on set. "It was like, 'Whoa, this is weird.' I saw Indiana Jones when I moved to Madrid early '80s. I remember even the name of the cinema, and I thought, 'Oh my god, this is the future of movies, adventure movies,' and it was for many years. For 40 years. Now, everything is changing. The paradigm of cinema is changing."
Official Competition hits theaters June 17.
For more on the beloved actors, see the video below.
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