Ahead of the release of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, titular star Antonio Banderas sat down to discuss the enduring popularity of his feline character. Originally debuting in Shrek 2 as an assassin sent to kill the eponymous ogre, Puss became an instant fan favorite to the point of being the only character besides Shrek (Mike Myers) to get his own series. Banderas told Collider what he thought the reason for that was.

Another reason for the enduring appeal for the character that Banderas brought up was the multi-generational appeal of Shrek. For instance, Banderas had interviews with people who would have been little kids when Shrek 2 came out, and they told him how watching the movie again as an adult was a completely different experience.

“Contrast. There’s something that is important. I mean, when the Shrek saga was created, they were just putting a lot of accent in all fairy tales and a completely different look to those characters than before, a different angle to see them. Zorro, in a way, was a fairy tale. It was created as a stripe in The New York Times before we went to the bigger screen and then to television in the ’60s and stuff. So they took the character, like a fairy tale character, but they put that whole entire character in the body of a cat. That is a contrast.”

RELATED: Antonio Banderas Feels ‘More Connected’ to Puss in Boots Through The Last Wish

“They said to me things like, ‘When I saw the movie now, of Shrek 2, for example, I understood why my father was laughing at certain points that I couldn’t understand.’ So, the intelligence in the teams that were creating all of those movies was extraordinary, just to create a movie that appeals to audiences that were adults and for the kids at the same time. I think that’s the success of Puss in Boots.”

A Puss in Boots Sequel Is a Long Time Coming

     DreamWorks Animation

The first Puss in Boots movie was released in 2011. The Last Wish is in theaters now, in 2022. While not quite as extreme as Avatar: The Way of Water, that’s still a pretty long gap between installments. Banderas said he lost contact with people for a couple of years but understood that major changes were happening, such as moving to a different studio and the pandemic. He even reached a point where he thought that a sequel might not happen.

Banderas was also asked about the possibility of Puss reuniting with some old friends, which the end of The Last Wish certainly teases. While Shrek Forever After, released in 2010, was billed as the final installment, there have been reports of trying to develop a fifth film for years. However, Banderas’s answer might not be what fans clamoring for more Shrek films might be hoping for.

“So I got in contact with them eventually, but yeah, there was a period of time of maybe not two years, but a year-and-a-half, something like that, in which I didn’t receive any news. At that point, I thought, ‘Oh, well, maybe they’re just rethinking,’ because this new panorama that they had in front of them, they are thinking, ‘It’s something completely new.’ They didn’t want to revisit things that they have done in the past, something like that. So yes, at some point, I thought about it, but then here we are.”

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is airing in theaters now.

“No, officially, no, no. Nobody has said anything to me. I was the first one who was surprised when at the end of this movie, we saw this wink of an eye that the studio just threw there, with Far, Far Away. And so I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but certainly, if I knew something, I will say it. But no, none officially.”