The role Javier Bardem will always regret never playing: “I was so devastated”
Whether they admit it or not, every actor has a favourite role, just as every parent has a favourite child. For most, we can probably guess at which, as it will usually be the role they played the longest, the one they worked the hardest for or the one they won the most accolades for. But, for Javier Bardem, his favourite role is one that he never even got to play, let alone present to the world.
For 11 years, Bardem worked alongside Steven Spielberg on a TV miniseries chronicling the story of 16th-century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma II, the ninth Emperor of the Aztec Empire. Created and written by Steven Zallian, it would feature Bardem as the eponymous Cortés and Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta as the Emperor, with various other big names attached in terms of actors, producers and the like.
The four-part mini-series was set to follow Cortés on his conquest of King Moctezuma II’s empire, where he was initially held prisoner but eventually turned the tables and changed the course of history. In 2020, the show even began filming in partnership with Amazon, but was suspended after only two weeks due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. By September, Amazon had pulled out as the crisis showed no signs of slowing down and the whole thing was scrapped.
“I was so devastated,” Barden told Gentleman’s Journal. “All of this work, of so many years and so much quality, so much meaning… all gone.” To work on something for 11 years, to have it all set up and ready to go, to have it just within reach and then to have it cancelled due to something completely out of your control, it’s understandably devastating.
Then, there’s the fact that this entire project goes back as far as 1965, when blacklisted Hollywood writer Dalton Trumbo wrote the original screenplay. Back then, it was a much different production that centred on Montezuma as the protagonist and focused more on the relationship between him and Cortés than the conquest. Martin Ritt was meant to direct, and Kirk Douglas was to play Cortés. But ultimately, it never happened, and years later, Steven Zallian acquired the script to rewrite.
So for 55 years, a production about Cortés and Moctezuma has been in the works in some way, but all it took was a pandemic for it to come crumbling down. Although Bardem isn’t entirely hopeless about the project: “I heard there might be a possibility of getting it back and rescuing the project, but I said to Steven, ‘We’d better hurry up, otherwise I’ll be doing it as the grandfather of Cortés!’”
It seems like we might already be getting into that territory, considering Bardem is 55 years old and Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire when he was in his 30s. Although it’s undeniable that Bardem would do an incredible job, given his work up until this point, the man thinks it would have been his best work. However, my question is: can it get much better than it already is? Maybe one day we’ll find out.
