Antonio Banderas Defends Quentin Tarantino Amid Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood Backlash

Antonio Banderas is coming to Quentin Tarantino‘s defense.

The actor, 59, spoke to The Independent about backlash Tarantino, 56, is facing over his most recent film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

“I think an artist should be free. Then people should be free to agree or disagree,” Banderas said. “You have the freedom to continue watching his movies or not.”

Likewise, if audiences dislike the direction Tarantino takes a film, “ ‘I will never go and see a movie from Tarantino again,'” Banderas said.

“Or, ‘I love his movies and I’m gonna go and see them again,'” he continued. “I think we should respect that freedom.”

Banderas isn’t a stranger to disliking certain things in film, saying, “There are sometimes things in art that, I have to tell you, they bother me … but I will never, never, never censor them.”

The actor and the director both worked together in 1995’s Desperado, which was directed by Tarantino’s longtime friend Robert Rodriguez and also starred Salma Hayek.

Tarantino’s ninth film debuted in theaters in late July and since then it has received criticism for the director’s depiction of Bruce Lee, played by Mike Moh in the film.

Lee’s daughter, Shannon, expressed her disappointment in her father’s portrayal telling The Wrap in July, “He comes across as an arrogant a-hole who was full of hot air and not someone who had to fight triple as hard as any of those people did to accomplish what was naturally given to so many others.”

RELATED: Quentin Tarantino Defends Bruce Lee’s Portrayal in Once Upon a Time After Backlash from Family

“It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theater and listen to people laugh at my father,” she continued. “Here, he’s the one with all the puffery and he’s the one challenging Brad Pitt. Which is not how he was.”

Tarantino defended the film and his depiction of Lee during a press conference in Russia earlier this month.

“The way he was talking, I didn’t just make a lot of that up,” Tarantino said. “I heard him say things like that, to that effect. If people are saying, ‘Well he never said he could beat up Muhammad Ali,’ well yeah, he did. Not only did he say that, but his wife, Linda Lee, said that in her first biography I ever read … She absolutely said it.”

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is now playing.