HispanicBusiness

Spanish singer and Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas, who portrayed the
Robin Hood-eque character Zorro in a 1998 blockbuster movie, has been named a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for the world's poor.

In his new position, he will play a key role in the global goal to end world poverty by 2015, the Associated Press reports.

"Poverty robs us of our potential as a people, preventing us from being all that we can be," the 49-year-old Banderas said in a statement. "This is why it is so important to mobilize all of our efforts to defeat it, especially if today we have the knowledge, the tools and the resources to do it."

He will focus primarily on the countries of Africa and Latin America.

Banderas, who is married to actress Melanie Griffith, was reared in a middle-class family in Spain, the son of a school-teacher mother and police-officer father.

In 1998's "Mask of Zorro," Banderas became the first Spanish actor to portray the Spanish folk hero since the character was created in 1919. Zorro was popularized by the Italian-American actor Guy Williams in the 1950s TV series.

Banderas has also appeared in Assassins, Evita, Interview With a Vampire, Philadelphia, Desperado and the Shrek sequels.