Javier Bardem: "I no longer tolerate disrespect towards any worker on a set"

The guy came up to him. To know what he would want. He asked for his name. And he answered the truth: "Javier." Bardem. The other then punched him in the face and left. To this day, so many years later, the actor still does not know why a stranger decided to hit him one night in the middle of a nightclub. Apart from the broken nose, yes, he says that the aggression left him with a lesson: "The senselessness of violence." His own career has explored him thoroughly, in so many villain roles. But he has also been a torrid seducer or a weak man in the face of the twilight, frustrated proletarian or arrogant boss. That is, everything and its opposite. Like the reactions it arouses: admiration, in the majority of the cinephile public. Some rejection, especially because of his strong political opinions. And even the nonsense of someone willing to hit him.

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In The Little Mermaid, remake of the classic that opens next Friday in Spain, now embodies King Triton. A sovereign; He, who has always been a Republican. But, above all, a parent. With dilemmas that the actor faces daily with his two children: love unconditionally, teach, project, accept, let go. In a word, breed. At 54 years old (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1969), Bardem explains that he has discovered the importance of also addressing younger audiences. And, incidentally, push him to take care of the ocean, through a sequence that the actor himself insisted on introducing in the film.

Here summarized, in some way, its essence. The winner of six Goya awards for his roles, the first Spanish actor to win an Oscar or a Volpi Cup, who one day was congratulated for his talent by Al Pacino himself, with a message that Bardem still keeps. The European so adored in Hollywood as to be able to ask the director of The Little Mermaid, Rob Marshall, to get him on board the project. The activist without mincing words to fight against xenophobia or in defense of the marginalized, the Saharawis or the environment. And the warrior even on set. After all, his own debut seemed against the current: at the age of six, in El pícaro, by Fernando Fernán Gómez, he had to laugh at a man with a gun. However, he burst into tears. And even the myth had to prove him right: "It's not what I wanted, but I like it."

Javier Bardem, in the skin of Triton, in a moment of 'The Little Mermaid'.

Question. Carpenter, gorilla, once even did a striptease or went out of a cake at a party. What mark did so many different jobs leave on you in your youth?

Answer. I don't regret anything I've done, nor do I regret what I haven't done. My life has led me to this accident that I am today, for better and for worse. If I look back I see a guy who has tried to make a living. And who has not been given anything, because I grew up in a family where nobody gave anything away. One of the issues I celebrate most is when I see people doing what they can for a living, except those who do it at the expense of the pain of others. That is undignified. But they are the least. In those who are striving to have their place in the world, there I recognize myself. It's one of the things I want my kids to understand. It is important to earn a place, not only economic or social, but empathetic, to belong to a community, to be part of something much bigger than oneself.

Q. What place have you earned?

A. I am absolutely lucky. I would never have imagined that I could make a living from this. When I worked as an extra and said a phrase, when I saw how bad my mother [the late interpreter Pilar Bardem] was waiting for a call that did not come, when my sister Monica, who by the way has returned to the stage with Those breadcrumbs, was the first actress of the three [the other is Carlos], wonderful, and went to the world of hospitality because he had no job ... I thought, 'How fucked up is to do this.' Little by little I was doing, they let me go doing. This work depends as much on the opinion and taste of others as any creative discipline, but also brings together the physical, how you look. It can generate a lot of insecurity. I didn't want to get into that vertigo, but I was bloody, saying, "It seems like my only way to express myself is through interpretation." And here I am, twenty-odd years later, living off this and well.

Javier Bardem, together with his mother, Pilar, at the 2008 Oscar gala in which he won the statuette. AP

Q. Is that insecurity cured over the years?

It's getting worse.

Q. Worse? And that?

A. Let's see, it's getting worse and better. The nonsense of before no longer worries you. Age is causing a funnel sensation where only emotions and important situations happen. That's the good news. The bad news is that the well-being of the people you love most and depend on the most becomes vital to you. So, insecurity is not so much if I'm going to do it wrong or well, but if what I'm doing is doing good for them too, or for society itself. You already care that yours has a footprint somewhere, in someone. Not because I say, "What I do is important," but because it does someone good. And that's why lately I'm also in more children's movies. Reaching such susceptible, vulnerable, formative mindsets, with beautiful messages, is important. But it creates another kind of insecurity: "Is this election going to do anyone any good?" In The Little Mermaid many elements come together that make you believe that it does.

Q. Paolo Sorrentino once told me that he wanted people to say his films were "funny." What would you like them to say about you?

A. I understand that a director can say that, because he always puts his essence in every film. The actor is more obliged to navigate and, in fact, the one who really tries to make characters has to erase himself from his essence, which will drag the character to be a mirror of himself. The work is to get out, to try that leap of imagination where you can look at the world with different eyes. It is almost impossible, it is generated only by geniuses, and sometimes. But when it happens it is the dream of any interpreter. So, look: what I want is for them not to say anything about me, to worry about the important things.

Javier Bardem and his brother and actor Carlos, in a protest in July 2012 before the Ministry of Culture for the increase in VAT on cinema, among other sectors, to 21%. GORKA LEJARCEGI

Q. Speaking of filmmakers, an interview of his with The Guardian in 2008 was titled: "I always fight with directors." Is it still valid?

A. Yes, yes.

Q. And what fight? Why?

A. Out of respect from me, my colleagues and anyone who is working on a set. I can't stand the disrespect anymore. I don't tolerate it. I'm already capable enough to say, "That's not going to happen on a set where I'm on." And it includes everyone.

Q. Does it happen a lot?

A. Cinema and its production are very hierarchical, pyramidal. And sometimes there is a major abuse of power that I don't think I'm aware of, but it's assumed. It is not a question of "I am a tyrant and I will exercise my power" on the part of the producer, the director or the actors, but it is already implicit in the fact that there are people who are going to work a lot and will be very little recognized, and people who are going to work less who have to be given what they need. We all need a lot of things and on sets where everyone feels equally important is where things work. Thank God, times change and there is more sensitivity and equanimity in the films of today than in the nineties. My second fight is the characters. When I'm in one (and I already know it more than you, because, no matter how much you wrote it, it's already mine, I'm very sorry) and they ask me for something that I feel in my gut that I wouldn't do or say, I fight it. Although the director's consideration of the actor has also changed a lot. He is already respected more as a creator, before he was a parrot, something like "you will say what I want".

Javier Bardem poses in Times Square to advocate for a global ocean treaty before participating in a United Nations conference on ocean conservation in New York, USA, in August 2019. Mike Segar (REUTERS)

Q. He has supported the Hollywood screenwriters' strike. In its midst, the main focus is almost always taken by the actor. Do stars like you, even unwittingly, run the risk of overshadowing writers?

A. Yes. Except for people like Dalton Trumbo, who has reached an extraordinary authorship status, with recognizable writing, the screenwriter has always been an out-of-focus figure. And yet, it is the most important thing. The films we remember aren't about the actors, the lighting or the direction: it's about how it's been told and impacted us. If it is well interpreted, illuminated and directed, Apocalypse Now comes out. But who thought of putting those pieces together? The hardest thing in the world is to be a screenwriter, it is the least celebrated and the most needed. In fact, when it comes to choosing the movies, I try to choose the stories. You don't always have that option: sometimes it's not there, because writing a good story is very difficult. When it arrives It's not a country for old men, you see it. You think, "This has to be done."

Q. How often does something like this happen?

A. Many years. There is always something that falls, that is missing. And they often tell you, "We fixed it on set." Lie, that never happens.

Q. Did you pass up any good stories?

A. I swear that I have not regretted any of the ones I have rejected, which have been many more than the ones I accepted. Even, for example, Minority Report. Of course I love the idea of working with Steven Spielberg, but for me it wasn't the time for that movie, I wouldn't have enjoyed it. If I proposed it now, I would surely do it.

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in a still from 'Jamón, jamón', by Bigas Luna (1992). Cordon Press

Q. In The Little Mermaid he plays Ariel's father, Triton. How much has your own experience helped you? What has surprised you about yourself when raising two children?

A. Fatherhood changes everything. Now there is a person you love unconditionally, for whom if a bus suddenly comes, you would put yourself in front. I don't know who else you would do that for. That is very powerful and at the same time it has to do with fear, with the insecurity of the adult to say: "This little person is nobody without me." And that is a huge responsibility that we assume as a parent, without having asked their permission. They have come because we have decided. We put that responsibility on us, and on them, to bear it. Our anxiety, fear, expectation, frustration, pain, joy... We project it onto them, consciously and unconsciously, to the point where at some point we stop seeing them, we begin to imagine them as possible desirable individuals for our own ego. And it's normal and humane. The job is to re-educate yourself as a parent and think about everything that creature has to teach you, what you have to learn to be able to accompany her to be the person she wants to be. It is a learning that is in all the books but in practice it is difficult. At the same time you recognize that what you teach him is fundamental, but what surrounds him is just as important. Starting to see that person by whom you are building yourself is the great challenge until you let him go. And to say: "I had the pleasure of being able to accompany you and the honor. Now it's your turn."

Q. There is another, more trivial aspect of his character. He is a king. Has it helped you to understand Felipe VI more or rethink something?

A. Not at all. Long live the republic! Kings, for me, nothing more than fiction.

Q. I used to make a plea for people who make an effort. He has always used his loudspeaker to champion causes he believes in.

A.The sequence of The Little Mermaid where the king is cleaning the bottom of the ocean with his daughters I proposed. I told Rob: "This film is going to be seen by millions of children, it would be important to teach them the wonders of the sea and to be aware that it does not take care of itself, that we are responsible". It's a small sequence, a brilliance. But I think it is important that the new generations will experience it.

Javier Bardem, in a frame of 'No country for old men', by the Coen brothers, the film for which he won the Oscar for best leading actor.

Q. In Parallel Mothers it was said that the actors are all left-wing. It's true?

A. Perhaps there is a tendency more to the left. I also know people who are apolitical, if you can be, or who pull to the right. I do believe that the actor is obliged to empathize and the moment you empathize and tolerate, because you have no more noses to understand and get into the skin of such disparate people, your head opens, your mentality expands and you can no longer enter into matters as terrible as xenophobia, racism, intolerance, systematic persecution, political or social. You are obliged to understand the reasons why people harm themselves and are used.

Q. So becoming an actor leads to being on the left?

A. It leads to empathy with pain and reinforce tolerance. And if you empathize with the pain, you can't vote for Vox [laughs].

Q. It is said that once a man approached him in a discotheque, asked for his name and broke his nose with a punch. It's true? What happened??

A. I don't know yet. That taught me the utter senselessness of violence. I have played rugby for many years. I was in the Spanish national team. It's a tough sport, but with a lot of ethics and extraordinary team values. That day it turned my mind to say: "Violence happens senselessly, originates senselessly and creates nonsense." And if you are not attentive to that you will continue as a victim of that violence causing more, since someone has to pay for that senselessness that you suffered. That is the perfect chain of violence.

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