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Javier Bardem thinks he has talent. And, strangely, he means not at all the more than obvious talent for acting. Most of all, he appreciates in himself the ability to experience … mental pain. Meeting with a man who always knew how to prioritize.
He says he has a special talent. And he does not mean the actor’s, impersonation, which immediately comes to mind. He speaks of a talent for feeling pain. Not physical. And the one that is more painful than the physical one is the feeling of deep tragedy of a priori finite human existence, the pain of the spirit, the feeling of the inevitability of the finale. This talent forced him to avoid lightness and turn down a role in The World Is Not Enough (the 19th Bond film). He also turned down an offer to play in “Minority Report” with Steven Spielberg himself – with the wording: “I can’t imagine myself running around the rooftops.” The same talent led him to play the doomed poet Arenas in Before Night Falls, the dying and fighting for the future of his children as a small dealer in Beautyful, the complete paraplegic who insists on his right to voluntarily die in The Sea Within. , murderers with eyes full of death in No Country for Old Men…
But nothing about the man who sits relaxed across from me in an armchair in a sumptuous baroque suite at the Ritz in Madrid seems to suggest this talent. Except for one thing, it’s significant. He is great. It takes up a lot of space. Great – not at all in a figurative sense: Bardem is a man of powerful build and rather big stature. But it takes up a lot of space not only physically – even the baroque excesses of the interior cannot divert your gaze from it. Like he takes up a lot of space in this world, like he really means a lot here. Like it’s really wrong to be distracted by the little things from someone so significant. But he has a quiet husky baritone, although you expect loudness. He has the soft manners of a big man who seems to be afraid of inadvertently hurting someone weaker. And a sad, very sad smile.
Read more:
- Michael Fassbender: “I owe a lot to my naivete”
Pain
Psychologies: Some journalists call you the embodiment of masculinity, others note your penchant for hypochondria, the habit of suspecting various illnesses. Isn’t it a strange contrast?
Javier Bardem: And it’s always strange to me that people like this, first of all, focus on … the exterior.
“IN ANYONE, EVEN THE MOST ORDINARY PERSON, THERE IS FORCE TO PASS THROUGH EVERYTHING, TO OVERCOME FATE”
So you don’t feel like a strong man?
H.B.: I was born in the late 60s, at a time when these traditional definitions – man, woman – began to lose stability. And somehow no one specially brought up a man in me. On the contrary, I was brought up in such a way that it’s unhealthy to hide your feelings, that it’s not a shame to be a dreamer, that all these “manly” and “real woman” are zilch, prejudice. And I still do not appreciate this “real man” – the label that was put on me. I have both masculine and feminine, I have masculine and feminine values. Who is a strong man? The one who hides the pain?
But this is a stereotype!
H.B.: That’s it. And I do not hide and do not count. And I even tried to analyze: why, in fact, I am waiting for either cancer, or multiple sclerosis, or something else … And I came to the conclusion that, by and large, this is natural. Pain is part of life. An irreplaceable part of it. One might even say the main one. After all, everything that we gain is a reason for pain, for fear of losing. Children, love, role – everything. Life itself is no exception. I’m afraid to lose a lot. But it is impossible to spread, even if completely justified fears, throughout everything that exists in life, this must be restrained.
You talk about pain in such a way that you get the feeling that you … like it. Where does this trait come from?
H.B.: I suspect it’s genetically professional. I’m an actor, probably in the 20th generation. Mom, father, uncles, aunts, grandparents, all my ancestors were actors. We were actors at a time when people like us were buried behind the cemetery fence, outside the consecrated ground, because they were considered perverts and heretics. Or worse, claiming the role of God, the demiurge, because we are creating another world parallel to the one created by God. Apparently, the actor’s inherent feeling of some restlessness and a certain lack of any life guarantees was superimposed on some personality traits … I probably shouldn’t have become an actor, my nature is not that, so as not to thunder into neurotics from this business.
in the constellation
In the criminal-psychological thriller The Counselor, Javier Bardem has a very characteristic role. Of course, the film is interesting not only for this: The Counselor was filmed by one of the outstanding directors of our time – Ridley Scott, according to the script of the classic of modern literature Cormac McCarthy, the author of Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men. The stardom of the cast is also record-breaking: in addition to Javier Bardem, Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, John Leguizamo starred in the film.
Available from November 14th.
Force
Are you saying that you still consider yourself a neurotic? You can’t tell by looking at you.
H.B.: This is because… you see, there is neurosis and there is tragedy. I curb neurosis because I know about the tragic. Here… Okay, an example from the movie. “Beautiful”. A man discovers that he is mortally ill, that he does not have long to live. At the same time, his two small children will remain complete orphans – their mother is half-mad, psychotic. In addition, he talks to the dead and himself becomes involved in the murder of 25 illegal immigrants, including children. But desperately, in the remaining time of his life, he tries to ensure the future of his loved ones. At least somehow. Is it possible to watch such a movie? How to watch it? How is it even purely spectator experience? But in an ordinary, normal person there is strength – and there is strength to come out of this film even as a better person. Because it’s not drama. It is a tragedy in the most classical, ancient Greek sense. Where the gods, fate enters the territory of the people and demonstrates how weak they, the people, are – sending them trials with such disasters that a person cannot control, which he cannot even match. But he must go through all these trials, overcome fate. To realize that he is still too weak to face the gods. There are no gods in Beautyful, there is death. She appears before the hero and says: here are 3 months for you, during this time you must realize who you are. She puts a mirror in front of him. So that he can find the strength in himself to forgive himself and others, to say “forgive” to those whom he has caused pain and suffering. And leave your children a much more important legacy than money: understanding how important it is to take care of others, those you love, to whom you owe something. Realizing what a tragedy can be, you, I, the viewer, must run home from the hall to hug loved ones. I am not kidding. I also have personal experience. I was 6 years old when Franco died and the dictatorship ended. I found fascism in its most everyday, daily form. In the form of fear that accompanied my loved ones every day and every night. My uncle, an actor and director, spent several years in prison for anti-fascist activities. I remember how little I am walking hand in hand with my mother down the street, and some freaks in uniform are shouting after her nasty things – the secret police incited their privates to persecute dissidents. And we quicken our pace and start running in fear… I think if we become aware of real human tragedies, this will be the end of our neuroses. We will stop being afraid of our fears.
Read more:
- How pain changes us
You mentioned ancient gods… Does God mean something to you? After all, you were born in a deeply religious country…
H.B.: Yes, and even received a completely traditional upbringing for a Spaniard of his generation, quite Catholic. But I am a deeply unbelieving person. And I even joke about this topic: I don’t believe in God, I believe in Al Pacino. Not in insight and creation, but in craftsmanship, craft, if you like.
Once upon a time in Spain
Javier Angel Enfinas Bardem was born on March 1, 1969 in the Canary Islands. in the family of actress Pilar Bardem and businessman Jose Carlos Enfinas. The father left the family (besides Javier, there were two older children) when the boy was not even a year old. Until the age of 20, Javier was preparing for the profession of an artist, did not rule out the possibility of a career as a rugby player, but the role in the film Jamon, Jamon by Bigas Luna made him a star in Spain and paved the way for an acting career. Now Bardem has more than 50 film roles, an Oscar, four Golden Globe nominations, acting prizes at festivals in Cannes and Venice and a personal star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2010, Bardem marries – colleague and compatriot Penelope Cruz, who was his partner in the film “Jamón, Jamon”. The couple expressed their gratitude to the author of this film, Bigas Luna, in a peculiar way – by naming their second child, a girl born in July this year, Luna. Despite being in demand in the US, Bardem and Cruz live in Madrid.
Flair
Mastery for you personally is…
H.B.: A question of experience. When I became an actor – and I became one because I had not seen anything else since childhood – I could not take a step without consulting my mother. And she gave me advice until one day she realized that this was not the way. And she said, “Trust your nose. Alien knowledge is alien. Get to know yours.” This has generally become my slogan: trust your instincts. Later, my mother suggested another personal slogan to me. When I started to suffer from criticism. She said: “Acting is very simple: it turned out great, failure happens. You just have to work.” I never call my work art. It’s work, that’s all.
While working, you also overcome the main acting fear – what will be refused, not appreciated, not accepted?
H.B.: Why, this is not an actor’s fear, but a completely ordinary human fear: we all want to be accepted and never, never be refused. Today I can say that acting experience has already taught me to take it easier. Although 10 years ago I was waiting for calls with bated breath: what if there was no next role … Mom for years waited for at least some work in the theater, in the cinema, and in order to have something to feed us – me, my older sister and brother – washed the entrances , sat with other people’s children. For my sister and me, it was the “black phone fear” — the fear that no one would call my mother. Well, we had such a black telephone at home, antediluvian, with a disk. And in childhood, we all knew that it was impossible to borrow it for a long time, because at that moment they could call my mother and offer a job. The black phone rarely rang. Then I became an actor, and again he called too rarely – already for me. But one day he rang, I rushed to him and … was surprised to find: the device is bright pink! This sister, furious with all our family and professional experiences, got up at 5 in the morning and painted it with car paint! Of course, she did not overcome the cause of my feelings, but still she did something with my attitude towards them.
Read more:
- We choose each other for a reason
Courage
At home, in Spain, you are a significant figure in the public sense. They went out to demonstrate against the actions of the government in a crisis. You were declared almost an enemy of the state when one of your two family restaurants was closed due to constant losses due to mass unemployment, in which, as you publicly stated, the government is actually interested. Actors usually avoid disputes with the governments of their countries. Where does your resolve come from?
H.B.: You know, Pen (actress Penelope Cruz – Bardem’s wife. – Ed.) and I sold our house in Los Angeles. Because there, of course, a good house, but there is not our home. We are Spaniards and we want to remain so. We want our children to grow up and live in Spain. That says it all. This is my country. We tend to say exactly what you think. Our government clearly needs people to tell it the truth. Every fourth adult and 56% of people aged 18 to 25 are unemployed. This also says it all.
Happiness
You willingly talk about your mother and sister, but never about other women in your life. And the public knows almost nothing about them. Is it just that you are happily married to a woman with whom you were closely acquainted for 20 years before marriage …
H.B.: Yes, I never talk about it. And of course I won’t be with you.
But why?
H.B.: If a person voluntarily made such a choice – to be with you – then this is happiness. So consider that the reason is again fear. Fear of jinxing your happiness.