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
When I see myself at 14 years old I can put my hands on my head and think: 'How could I have done that?' but at that time it had sense for me. You do the same when you're 20. And now, when you look at people who are 20 years old you ask yourself: 'Was I like that? Was I really like that?'
There is no good side to celebrity.
But don't call me an actor. I'm just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don't say that what I am doing is art.
The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award.
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.
And the whole Oscar thing, that is just surreal: you spend months and months doing promotion, and then come back to reality with this golden thing in your hands. You put it in the office and then you just have to look at it sitting on the shelf. And, after about two weeks, you go: 'What is that doing there?'
I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.
In 22 years of acting, I've only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I'd give it back and say, 'Take this s**t out of my hands!' There were laughing, like they couldn't believe I was supposed to be the villain.
Imagine the situation between Israel and Palestine. It's such a big mess. You can be on one side or the other. But what's clear is that there's an urgent need for a solution there and that's been dragging on for so long.
Only unfulfilled love can be romantic
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.
I have this problem with violence. I've only done one movie in almost 20 years where I killed people. It's called Perdita Durango. It's a Spanish movie. I'm very proud of the movie, but I felt weird doing that.
My first part was in a film where I played a sadomasochist who killed people and created fun orgies. I'm a method actor. I went to every orgy in the world.
When I was born, there was a very isolated idea of what it meant to be a man or a woman, and you belonged to one gender or the other.