The defining movie Javier Bardem knew would “represent a before and after” for his career
I have an idea that would save an awful lot of money in these missile-flinging times of war, and that is instead of threatening people we’ve decided we don’t like in other countries with being blown to bits, governments could instead simply hire Javier Bardem, give him a strange 1970s bowl cut and get him to drag an oxygen canister around and immediately any so-called enemies would be so terrified they’d think better of it and everyone would be friends.
The issue with that idea is that Bardem actually wouldn’t come that cheap; he’d cost several millions of dollars, and that’s because he’s spent 20 years or so becoming one of the best actors on the planet. He might even cost more than a missile, so you can ignore that first paragraph, actually.
Of course, it was thanks to his role as the coin-flipping, psychotic Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers’ classic 2007 movie No Country for Old Men that was the making of Bardem, taking him from bit parts in films like Tom Cruise’s thriller Collateral to collecting the Oscar for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ four years later.
That set him on the road to Francis Ford Coppola calling him the heir to the likes of Pacino and De Niro, and to Woody Allen casting him in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, for which he was Golden Globe nominated. But it was his next film which was to prove a new challenge for the Spaniard, both physically and mentally.
Future Birdman and The Revenant director Alejandro G Iñárritu wrote the script for 2010’s Biutiful with Bardem in mind, the story of a father and criminal with terminal cancer who tries to put his affairs in order to guarantee a better future for his children. Inarritu, who is renowned for his meticulous nature and perfectionism, spent five months shooting the film, which was made all the more difficult for Bardem when he injured his back.
Bardem, for his part, knew that “Biutiful is going to represent a before and after” in terms of his acting career, and the role indeed required him to portray a character sinking into a kind of personal hell all the way up until his eventual death. His performance was hailed by other directors, including Mann and Sean Penn, and he was again nominated for an Oscar for the film, in addition to winning ‘Best Actor’ at the Cannes Film Festival.
Bardem’s star was even further in the ascendance after the movie, which was Golden Globe-nominated but lost money at the box office, after he was cast as James Bond’s adversary in Skyfall in 2012, the same year Bardem was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He’s gone on to appear consistently over the last decade in blockbusters like the sci-fi epic Dune and last year’s F1 with Brad Pitt, and has plenty more projects coming up over the next year or so. He’ll appear for the eighth time with compatriot Penelope Cruz in a movie called Bunker about a couple put to the test when Bardem’s architect character is tasked with building a survival bunker for a powerful CEO, plus he’ll appear in Dune 3, and has finished filming on a TV adaptation of Cape Fear.
No prizes for guessing which part he will play in that.
