He played a famed swordsman in "The Mask of Zorro," a Cuban rabble rouser in "Evita" and just your everyday dad (involved in espionage) in "Spy Kids" -- but now smoldering Spanish actor Antonio Banderas is jumping on a horse to play a fabled (though real-life) Mexican revolutionary. HBO Films announced on its Web site that Banderas, 41, will fill the title role in its upcoming production to be called "Pancho Villa As Himself," described by the pay-cable network as a fact-based biopic. (HBO, like PEOPLE, is part of AOL Time Warner.) Bruce Beresford ("Driving Miss Daisy") will direct the film, which features a screenplay written by "M*A*S*H" TV series creator and "Tootsie" screenwriter Larry Gelbart, who will also serve as executive producer. The film is scheduled to begin shooting in the fall and will focus on a little-known historical anecdote involving Villa (1878-1923) and pioneering movie director D.W. Griffith ("Birth of a Nation"). Villa apparently let Griffith place his camera in the middle of battle, thus creating Hollywood's first action movies -- 1914's "The Life of General Villa" and 1915's "The Outlaw's Revenge," says HBO (though some sources list Raoul Walsh as the director of those silent movies).