The last three years have been a defining moment in the career of Spanish actor Javier Bardem. Besides having garnered an Academy Award nomination for “Before Night Falls” he has enjoyed great “succès d'estime“ being directed by none other than John Malkovich in “The Dancer Upstairs” and revalidated his popularity with projects like Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s moving “Mondays In The Sun”, now premiering in the U.S. and a wildly successful movie in his native Spain.
All this helped Javier Bardem consolidate the appreciation that he initially obtained with a series of motion pictures as diverse as “Segunda piel” (Second Skin), “Carne tremula” (Live Flesh), “Boca a boca” (Mouth To Mouth), “Los Dias Contados”(Running Out Of Time), “Jamon, Jamon”, and “High Heels” as well as the little seen “Bolas de oro” (Golden Balls).

Well versed in the craft to which he has dedicated most of his professional career, Javier Bardem also maintains highly personal opinions about cinema and about the film directors with whom he has worked until today. Here is part of what he had to say during his latest sojourn to Los Angeles.

Before Night Falls

“It was the first movie I shot in a language other than my native tongue. When Julian Schnabel invited me to collaborate, I was not too sure I would be able to say yes, because I did not know the Cuban accent required to interpret Reynaldo Arenas and I did not speak English. All that changed, however, when I started to know more about the story of that incredible Cuban-born writer. To interpret someone like that has been, to this day, the most amazing creative adventure of my whole life”.

“Julian Schnabel told me I needed to perfectly understand not just the psychology and the thinking of Reynaldo Arenas but the thinking of the Cuban people as well. To be able to do that, for me, it meant that I had to go and live in the island for a couple of weeks. During that time I read various books written by Arenas, among them the text used as the basis for the film. Having worked in a movie like “Before Night Falls” makes me realize how profound the levels of intolerance can be sometimes, especially when exercised against the humble and the poor. Let me preface this by saying that I come from a family with a great tradition of leftist politics and, therefore, for a long time was of the idea that only right-wingers and the bourgeoisie could be intolerant, and then I discovered that I was wrong. Intolerance is truly a “deformed” feeling, in my mind, and it affects all parties, whether to the left or to the right of the political spectrum. It is an aberration, I think, for a human being to be able to condone the use of violence against another human being for only having different ideas. Reynaldo Arenas was a man who suffered the intolerance of the Cuban government merely for being a homosexual”.

“One of the most intolerant public acts that I have witnessed in the last years was the pronunciation the Pope made against homosexuality. I truly think this was a deplorable statement, something that should never had happened”.

“Reynaldo Arenas left Cuba with the hope of finding a new life outside his country, and, with this in mind, he went aboard the “Mariel” headed for Florida. He wanted a taste of liberty so badly but, at the same time, wanted to establish some human relations based on warmth and solidarity, something he never got to know in Cuba. In the United States, however, he could not find those kind of ideals, and what he found out was that those hopeful scenarios were, apparently from his experience, only in his books. Reynaldo Arenas had ample time, once in the U.S., to acquaint himself with the accumulated disdain that Cuban people in exile carry in their hearts, and their lack of generosity, which he encountered aplenty in Miami, was what made him move north, to New York City. But this turned out to be, once again, another cold city, enormously impersonal, and where he finally realized that the spiritual exile was a sentiment he would not be able to share with others. I believe that was the reason why he took his own life. “Before Night Falls” is a project that contains all these themes and, as a result, my life was never been the same again”.

The Dancer Upstairs

“John Malkovich is a great director, who always took into account what I had to say about my character. I did not have many expectations coming into this film. Since motion pictures are always such relative affair, I adopted a wait-and-see attitude; simply wishing to discover what would happen with the movie once it premiered”.

“Between John and I everything went perfectly well. Before starting to shoot he gave me enough information so that I would be able to construct my character as thoroughly as I could. He always treated me with the utmost respect and care; better still, he never used the power of the director in a negative way. John has a way of filming where he includes the whole film crew in his decision making process; he is always interested in the opinions we want to share with him. John is- this is not a revelation –an actor-director; he staged more than fifty theatre plays and therefore knows quite a lot about handling, and taking advantage of, the web of relationships that slowly grow between him and his collaborators”.

“In this movie I am in charge of interpreting the role of a man who gradually starts losing his moral compass, until he is transformed into a man without scruples at the end. I never thought, at any time, that the movie going public could feel any sympathy for this man. That is why I did not expect that we would garner almost the same amount of recognition and prizes for this film as I did with “Before Night Falls”.
“It was an interesting experience to receive an Oscar nomination for “Before Night Falls,” however, it did not produce a single change in my work as a theatre or a film actor. It is true that I became very famous all of a sudden and that I received a lot of offers to make movies outside of Spain, but, first of all, none of them were very interesting, and after the juggernaut of the Oscar campaign was over, things in my life shrank back to their normal dimensions. As to how one is affected by this type of recognition, all I have to say is that- as of this moment - I continue feeling the same fear of failure that I have always experienced about my work or about my next project”.

“I was never too worried about being popular and famous. Here, in the U.S., I have not suffered that problem yet. Back in Spain everything is different, though. Here, for instance, they appreciate you and applaud you when you obtain an important prize, and afterwards they leave you alone. That is not what happens in my country. There, they are always in tune to the last thing that you have done, and if that did not turn out well in box office terms, they could not care less about your body of work. One day they can tell you that you are a God and the day after you can be described as a piece of shit. In that regard, I have been able to discern there are, in this world of the movies, people who wish a very good relationship with fame, that they enjoy it and are comfortable with it. There is also another type of people, like John Malkovich and- in all due modesty –I, who do not have the slightest pleasure in having to deal with almost all of what public recognition truly entails.”


Mondays In The Sun

“What I liked about the script of this movie was that this story, conceived by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, is devoid of pre conceived ideas or emotional manipulations. What you can see in “Mondays In The Sun” goes far beyond a discussion of politics. It is a human drama with clear universal resonance. The treatment given to the unemployed in this story is very serious and respectful. The political aspect of the story is a good backdrop that enriches a drama about those people that, once left out of the labor market, see all their chances for a noble and more dignified existence being taken away from them.”

“Also, this is the first film where I do not have a starring role. In “Mondays In The Sun” there is no single dominant figure. All the characters and what they express individually is as equally powerful. My role- Santa -is one that I can feel completely identified with, because what Santa perfectly understands is the value of friendship. He also understands how grave are the consequences, in social and political terms, if those who do not agree with the injustices that are daily committed against them do not voice their rage.” “Although sometimes you can define a person as intransigent, Santa never loses sight of the opportunities he has to show his solidarity to his friends. This is a human trait that helped me immensely in giving depth and dimension to the character. I think it is the honesty of the writing in “Mondays In The Sun” what has delighted the movie going public that had a chance to see this film. This is the only way I can explain how a movie about a bunch of unemployed has been able to gain, both in and out of Spain, a place in the hearts of movie audiences everywhere”.