Over the past ten years Javier Bardem has established himself as one of the finest actors in international cinema.
Since his breakout role in Before Night Falls, the actor has steadily risen in status, bringing home an Oscar for No Country For Old Men and now starring in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, a film that has already won him the Best Actor prize at Cannes and is sure to bring in slew of other awards by the year’s end. But when speaking with Metro, the actor proved to surprisingly humble about his career.
“I’m blessed and lucky,” claimed Bardem. “I belong to the three to four per cent of actors that have jobs, most are unemployed. To be able make a living out of this and work on brilliant films is blessed.
“I always wanted to work with the Coens, and I did. From the very first moment I saw Amores Perros, I wanted to work with Alejandro, and I now I have. I think the payoff for me is patience. Since I started 20 years ago, I have been patient. My mother was an actress and my grandparents were actors, so I knew that this was a marathon. That’s difficult in our society because you’re taught that you have to succeed fast.”
Persistence and patience has clearly played a role in Bardem’s success, but despite what he humbly stated, his extraordinary talent played a vital role as well. Not many actors could so eloquently express the inner life of a man dying from cancer while trying to raise children and provide work for illegal immigrants in Biutiful, and even fewer could make it through the role without it affecting their daily lives.
“You don’t have to get lost in your own thoughts and emotions thinking that’s going to make your performance better,” explained the actor. “You really have to detach yourself from this sort of role because getting lost doesn’t make improve your acting and more importantly, it doesn’t help you live a better life.”
