of Puss because of his Spanish accent. According to Banderas, he was on Broadway for the musical Nine when Jeffrey Katzenberg approached him about taking the role. The Shrek 2 filmmakers showed him "a lot of paintings of the character", and he realized how "little" Puss was. Banderas said that he had developed a strategy for playing Puss after accepting the role, which had determined Puss's personality. Although he could have used a high-pitched voice for Puss, which was the filmmakers' original idea, he and the others working on the film opted for a tone that was "deeper" and "more breathy" than his normal voice. Banderas called the choice "very interesting", adding that it "helped to establish the limits and the parameters of the character in terms of personality". He regarded the effect as "almost like a lion trapped in the body of a little cat", which makes Puss "different". According to the actor, Puss's voice contrasts with his body; he stated that "the cat is not supposed to talk like that", adding that the difference between Puss's voice and appearance is comic relief. He also commented that the contrast between Puss's appearance and voice makes it seem like he is not even aware of his size. Banderas said that after the decision about Puss's voice had been made, the filmmakers had begun depicting the character "in a totally different way". He added that Puss had initially been conceptualized as "quite a little character" but had started gaining more importance after the filmmakers had realized his potential. Banderas said that he and the filmmakers had "a lot of fun" with Puss's character, and felt that viewers did too. Banderas said that the first scene he had recorded was coughing up a hairball, adding that he had spent "45 minutes doing strange sounds"; although it left him voiceless, he saw the moment as "fun". When asked about the most difficult part of voicing Puss, Banderas said "the biggest challenge was to understand the animation process". The actor said that in addition to providing Puss's English voice, he voiced the character in Mexican Spanish, Castilian Spanish, and Italian, calling the Italian dub "the most challenging" since he had to follow "the character's face movement"; Puss speaks with a lisp in the Spanish dub. When he was at the Cannes Film Festival for Shrek 2, Banderas noticed that Puss's character received much public