Javier Bardem
Javier Bardem
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardemis a Spanish actor from the Canary Islands. He is best known for his role in the 2007 film No Country for Old Men, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor portraying the psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh. He has also received critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los Lunes al sol, Mar adentro, and Skyfall, for which he received both a BAFTA and a...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth1 March 1969
CityLas Palmas, Spain
CountrySpain
I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.
I do a job and am lucky enough to do a job that I love, but it is a hard one. I'm not saying it is as hard as working in a coal mine, but it is still difficult in a different way. Sometimes you have to go through very strong emotional journeys and then come back to yourself. And that can be difficult to control.
The good thing about being an actor, and the gift of being an actor, is that you are beautifully forced to see the world with different eyes.
The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award.
Some quality performances and movies have a chance to be rewarded, but it's not like it's a bible.
I've always belonged to the street, and I always will. It's in my DNA.
[That night] I was sitting by Jack Nicholson with my long list of thanks, and I said, `I'm so nervous. I don't know what to say if I go up there.' He said, `Don't get emotional, drop the names, and dedicate it to your mother.'
My concern is to continue respecting my work as I've done since I began as an actor and I could only do that if I'm strong enough to keep on doing what I think best in an artistic way.
I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable.
But I remember the moment when my father died. I wasn't a very committed Catholic beforehand, but when that happened it suddenly all felt so obvious: I now believe religion is our attempt to find an explanation, for us to feel more protected.
When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you're really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else.
There are so many movies and it's a waste of time and a waste of money. Basically, movies are made with what it costs the external debt of all Africa.
The fact that I like to make characters doesn't mean that I like to watch my characters being made, my performance.
I was emotionally and physically punched in the stomach. This is not a place where you go and deliver the lines and then you come back. It's kind of a life-changing experience. But it can't get better than this for any actor - this is like an opera.