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Antonio Banderas waited 40 years to receive one of the most prestigious awards an actor can obtain: the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. And he says he prefers it that way.

“When awards come at an early age, they make you make many mistakes, but I haven’t made any mistakes,” said Banderas, 58, in an interview this week with The Associated Press in Miami.

Banderas, whose credits in Hollywood include “The Mask of Zorro”, was honored for his role as Salvador Mallo in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest drama, “Pain and Glory.”

It is their eighth film together, but the first in which Banderas portrays a version of his friend-director. In “Pain and Glory,” Mallo is a famous filmmaker reflecting on his life and his career that is based on Almodóvar, including a recreation of the director’s Madrid apartment.

“Pedro Almodóvar is a very private person and I understood him”, Banderas said. He took a step to “show a part of himself that he had never revealed before.”

The film was a favorite for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but Banderas was the one honored. “It’s a bittersweet feeling,” said Banderas, who was in Florida for Miami Fashion Week.

When he took the stage to receive the award, he did it in his name and in the name of his character, or Almodóvar himself. “I played him and because of that it is an award that I share with him,” said Banderas, whose credits with the director include “Labyrinth of Passion,” ″Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” and “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”

“I am extremely grateful and I have incredible respect and love for this person that has given me so much,” he said.