The Insider.com

Prior to garnering worldwide fame, Antonio Banderas was an acclaimed Spanish actor who had produced dozens of films and was consistently honored with hardware at Spanish film awards ceremonies. However, worldwide fame brought an entirely different atmosphere into frame.

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Banderas was officially introduced to Hollywood in 1991 in Madonna's documentary film and had made his way into films like Mambo King and Philadelphia, but the Málaga native didn't receive real recognition until 1995.

VIDEO: Hayek and Banderas Go Cruisin'

This Pop Culture Rewind takes you to that year on this date, when the Latin lover had just become a worldwide phenomenon after the April release of Desperado. His fame would only increase after the October release of the action thriller Assassins, which also starred Sylvester Stallone.

As his celebrity continued to grow, Banderas would consistently receive compliments on his physical appearance, which he not only rejected but claimed to be not capable of thinking similarly about himself.

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"I accept it with a sense of humor and I take it, but my purposes are different," he says in the featured video flashback. "If it's something that I have, it's something that I didn't really work on...It came to me since I was born...I've been, like everybody else, looking myself in the mirror every morning, and in thirty five years now I think I lose objectivity about myself.

"I can't really define myself as a sex symbol. I don't think I am...I'm not going to be angry because of something like that. It's fine, but...I don't really put so much attention in these kind of things. I try to be a good actor, and that's taken a lot of time and a lot of energy. All I have to do in my life is just to be O.K. when someone is telling me 'Action!' and 'Cut!' That's my life."

Alongside the flattering-but-unnecessary comments about Banderas' physical appearance upon his arrival into stardom came intense scrutiny of his personal life.

VIDEO: Antonio Banderas & Salma Hayek Take Cannes in 'Boots'

Shortly after Desperado's release, Banderas' divorce with his first wife and romance with current wife Melanie Griffith was under the media microscope. In an attempt to rebuild the boundaries between his personal and career lives, Banderas is very straightforward about the future of his relationship with the media.

"People are going to continue talking anyway, but I am not going to answer through the press or anything like that," he says. "My private life is not open to discussion anymore."

That was a promise.

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