Antonio Banderas has opened up about the responsibility he felt in taking on the role of one of his heroes, Pablo Picasso, in the second season of National Geographic Channel’s ‘Genius’ anthology series.

He told E! he went into the project trying not to fail. “To not fail just the character, but the truth.”

“Nothing is going to take me away from being a Picasso lover of his art and everything he has done as an artist, but there are certain sides of the human being that are darker, so we have to tell the truth.”

Banderas also pointed to his confidence in executive producer Ron Howard as a reason he was willing to take on the role.

“It’s important when you do a biopic to have that security that what you’re doing is actually based on facts because you’re talking about a human life that affected millions of people.”

“The sense of responsibility represents a kind of burden on my shoulders,” Banderas said.

The 10-part series exploring the life of the Spanish-born artist also stars Alex Rich, Poppy Delevingne, Sebastian Roche, T.R. Knight and Seth Gabel.

‘Genius: Picasso’ debuts Tuesday 24 April on Nat Geo.