The actor Javier Bardem called a “force of nature”
When he’s not scouring the unforgiving deserts of Arrakis with Lisan al Gaib in Dune, giving 007 a good run for his money in Skyfall, or gunslinging his way to an Academy Award in No Country For Old Men, Javier Bardem remains nonchalant, exuding a certain air of authority and calm when you come across him. When he makes a statement, it’s with cold and calculated assurance yet with the tender reverence akin to a sailor or conquistador from the shores of the Spanish Canary Islands, from which he hails.
His romance with actor Penelope Cruz continues to go strong with the Hollywood A-list couple now 14 years into their marriage raising two doting children. But Bardem was full of praise for another co-star, Salma Hayek, after the pair’s first film together.
Hayek and Bardem’s paths crossed several times over the years, beginning with their roles as judges on the jury at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where they first met. However, their on-set collaboration would come much later. The pair finally co-starred in the 2020 film The Roads Not Taken, directed by Sally Potter, marking the first time both actors shared the big screen together.
The Roads Not Taken was envisioned by Potter after her brother Nic was diagnosed with Pick’s Disease, a rare kind of dementia, leaving Potter to take care of him for three years until he passed away. Dovetailing her experiences of that personal tragedy, the film was rather close to the director’s heart as it explores the human psyche after being diagnosed with a condition similar to such a disease and how it impacts the lives of the patient and their loved ones. It also touches on the possible effects such a condition has on the human consciousness and several fictional possibilities played out by Bardem.
Much like the old Robert Frost poem, which is a given comparison considering the film’s title, collaborating on a film with a plot as deeply moving as The Roads Not Taken perhaps “made all the difference” in Bardem and Hayek’s relationship. Hayek, who plays Bardem’s ex-lover in the film, received a heartwarming comment from her co-star after the movie hit screens.
“She’s fearless,” Bardem says of Hayek speaking to iNews. “She goes like thunder… a force of nature, all her pain, her love, her laugh,” Bardem added.
Against the backdrop of life in the glare of the media and the flipside of fame, something Bardem has been rather vocal about when it comes to his family and raising his children in the spotlight, Hayek has maintained a close relationship with Bardem’s wife Penelope Cruz as well.
Hayek saw the rekindling of her career from its seeming fleeting embers, starring in 2021’s House Of Gucci and Eternals. In conversation with The Guardian, a jetlagged Hayek stated that being cast in the MCU epic felt “like a miracle”.
Hayek has seen her career swoosh from some significant highs to several lows, but being as successful as she’s been in Hollywood, coming from humble Mexican roots, Bardem’s dubbing of her as a “force of nature” is as warranted as it is heartwarming and has a certain pervading weight of truth to it.
