Antonio Banderas tries to be "courageous" in his personal life.

The actor voices the title character in the new animation Puss in Boots.

The film is a spin-off from the Shrek franchise and sees the heroic cat team up with Humpty Dumpty and Kitty Softpaws to find the goose that lays the golden eggs.

While his small feline character is brave, Antonia confessed is not as daring.

"I adore this character," he told Cover Media. "It would be very bad for me to say that I have similarities with him because I really think he has values that I don't. He's just too courageous and I am not that courageous in my personal life I try to be but it's hard."

However, the 51-year-old star recognises that there are some elements of him in Puss in Boots.

In particular the movie plays on the sword-wielding roles Antonio has previously played.

"What I would say is that I think the creative people, the scriptwriters, our director and everybody that is involved in the movie they try to get from you a lot of your personal features," he explained. "So I may have something of my character, and also they make references to characters I have played in the past, like Zorro, Desperado, 13th Warrior epic characters that I have played. I suppose that there is something there because I have been doing him for ten years."

The Spanish star sees even more of himself in the character now.

He believes this is partly because he has got to know the scriptwriters and crew better after working with them for the past decade.

"Not just when we are recording the movies but also when we are travelling around the world we learn about each other and our sense of humour," He revealed. So more and more I can see more of me every year, or every three years actually, in this character."

Co-star Salma Hayek voices Kitty Softpaws in the film.

Although she acknowledged a few similarities between her and Kitty, she was also quick to make a distinction.

"I am very independent and I have a great sense of adventure. I so feel like I have a lot of similarities with my character but I want to clarify that I am not a thief," she laughed.

Puss in Boots is released in the UK on December 9.