Spanish actor Antonio Banderas has opened up about playing Pablo Picasso, a role that he portrays in the second season of National Geographic’s Genius drama series.

Banderas grew up in the same town as Picasso, and spent his younger years idolising the iconic painter. “Twice before” Bandares has been asked to play Picasso, the actor revealed in a new interview with The Independent, and now he has finally found the right project in which to portray his childhood hero.

In said interview, Banderas offered a somewhat startling account of how he got into character. It involves communing with Pablo Picasso’s ghost. Here’s the quote:

“I’ve been with him now for months every day, and I can just actually say, ‘OK, come over here’. The ghost comes and just gets in your body and you’re… ‘boom’.”

As well as revealing his supernatural abilities, Banderas also spoke about the more controversial aspects of Picasso. An infamous misogynist, Picasso is quoted as saying that women ‘are machines for suffering’ and either ‘goddesses or doormats’. Banderas was asked what he thinks about Picasso being treated as a celebrity despite his derogatory statements about women, and this is what Banderas said:

“The problem with Picasso from my point of view, I don’t think he abused women, as we understand that now. The problem is that he wanted everything, everything, all the time.”

It will be interesting to see how much of Picasso’s darker side the show manages to portray, and how Banderas handles the task of playing a man he once idolised in such a light.

Genius: Picasso airs Mondays on National Geographic. Episode 1 debuted earlier this week, and there are nine more to follow.