Javier Bardem on Bunker and The Beloved: “I’ve been in some toxic environments”

With his formidable Oscar-winning turn as indefatigable hitman Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men (2007) and creepily lascivious Bond villain Raoul Silva in Skyfall (2012), Javier Bardem cemented himself as one of contemporary cinema’s most roguishly distinctive screen presences. His latest films, however, find him in more recognisably human territory. In Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved and Florian Zeller’s Bunker, he plays accomplished fathers whose devotion to their professional lives causes significant upheaval and unhappiness within their families. 

In The Beloved, Bardem is Esteban, an acclaimed but tyrannical filmmaker attempting to reconnect with the daughter (Victoria Luengo) he abandoned years earlier. In Bunker, he plays an architect, Miguel, whose family life with his wife (Penélope Cruz) and their two children is tested by a commission from a Silicon Valley billionaire (Paul Dano) and a difficult neighbour (Stephen Graham) building a window looking on to Miguel’s garden. Both men project authority and self-assurance, but Bardem’s careful way with a line – and sometimes just a glance – reveals the insecurity and vulnerability beneath their carefully maintained facades.

We sat down with him the day after the UK premiere of Bunker at the BFI London Film Festival to discuss toxic workplaces, generational masculinity and acting opposite his real-life wife, Penélope Cruz.

Your The Beloved co-star Victoria Luengo has said that the opening scene, where Esteban and Emilia reunite in a restaurant, was the first time you had met in real life. Also that the scene was shot for 80 minutes in one long take and improvised, before being edited down to length. Can you tell me about the experience of shooting that scene?

It was a 19-minute scene, one take, in a restaurant, surrounded by some crew members. We had the chance to do two dishes, one dessert, coffee, and get out of there. We had 10 pages of script. We read it, and then it just said, “How you get into those 10 pages and how you get out of those 10 pages? It’s up to you.” But [Sorogoyen] helped us to write our own [character] biographies separately. Some of those events will coincide and some others won’t be seen the same from her or my point of view.

The way we got into the scene was about sharing that biography. I improvised around the fact we are not seeing things in the same way, and that makes us feel very uncomfortable – as uncomfortable as you see it on the screen. It’s real, since we haven’t seen each other, the actress and I, for months before. We were so immersed in it that – when the director thought that he had it all and the walls opened and they [the crew] came out – we were like, “What the hell? Oh, they were shooting.” We totally forgot we were making a movie.

Is the opportunity to work like that something you look forward to?

I think it speaks highly of Rodrigo as a director that he wanted to give us this opportunity to really immerse ourselves in a reality and be able to play with the sensation of feeling uncomfortable – I’m feeling shame and also trying to connect with someone that I barely know. It was a great situation that directed us in the right way for the rest of the shoot.

You’re playing a director, and throughout your career you’ve worked with many great ones from Pedro Almodóvar to the Coen brothers to Terrence Malick. Did you get any inspiration from any for how you would play the role?

Absolutely. There was no one in particular. It was moments where I felt, “Oh, that situation, I can see that from that person, how he would react,” knowing that I, fortunately, never had experience of physical abuse or emotional abuse, as the director does in the movie. But I’ve been in some toxic environments: working environments where either the director, the producer or the actor can create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity but that is translated into respect. But no, this is not about respect. This is about fear, creating a sense of insecurity in all of us, in order for us to give him or her the power to control us. So, I’m not new to that. I’ve known situations where those things happen. They are very uncomfortable. There was a time where I was incapable of seeing it clearly. Now I can see it. I’m older and I won’t allow that anymore.

Your uncle was a director, your cousin still is and a lot of your family are actors, so you’ve been in and around the film world your whole life. Did any of that soak up and add to the feeling of playing a director?

It’s in my blood in some funny way, but I don’t have the need or the will to become a director myself. I’m always thinking, why would you do that to yourself? Where everybody’s asking you to answer hundreds of these questions, daily. You have to decide, black, white, up, down, cold, hot, far, close. Oh my God! Where is your place to put your attention to the creativity when so much is about the pressure of creating something under the worst circumstances. But I’ve been working long enough to know how they can behave on set and that’s where I wanted to portray.

At the heart of The Beloved is the relationship between Esteban and his estranged daughter Emilia. Esteban talks about unspecified difficult times he went through as mitigating circumstances for abandoning her, which could be addiction problems. To what degree do you have sympathy for his position?

The sympathy of a man who’s incapable of taking responsibility for the harm that he has created. I don’t think he’s a cruel man, because he’s unaware of the harm that he creates. And that’s because he was never taught to see the other as the other deserves, rather than see the other as a tool to his own needs or ambition.

There’s this generation of men that I belong to – I’m 57 years old – that were taught to be present in everybody’s lives, by power, by imposition, by strength, by not giving up those fake ideas of controlling other people’s wills to gain respect. That’s his poison, a poison that he gives to others. Also, he drinks daily because he was taught that way. 

This leads us to Bunker, in which you play architect Miguel. He’s another successful professional father, although his self-interest isn’t quite as destructive as Esteban’s. He seriously considers leaving his family for months to build a billionaire’s survival bunker. How much do you empathise with Miguel?

He’s a man of very laser-focused attention to his thing and how his thing makes a better place for his family and his community. Within that, he’s really losing sight of the things, the family and the people around him because, again, he’s unaware of what other people’s needs are. He’s a person full of fears and judgement. He’s not racist, but he is. He’s not social-classist, but he is. It’s all excused in the name of protecting his family. But what does that mean? In order to protect your family, you become somebody that is aggressive, somebody that pushes people away, somebody that condemns others for being different from their own needs. It’s a relevant story about today’s world, because we are getting more and more isolated, in the sense that people – especially people in power – are creating fear in us. It’s creating a narrative of fear.

You’ve worked with Penélope, your wife, on films before and obviously there’s palpable chemistry. Aside from the time it must save you in establishing a connection as actors, what are the advantages of being a real-life husband and wife and playing one?

First of all, we don’t have to rehearse, which is good, because that saves lots of money and time. Secondly, we know each other so well that at the same time, we know how to protect ourselves, we know how to protect each other. At the same time, how to demand the other goes a little bit further without imposing yourself or your need over the other.

But it’s a great game that has to do with creativity, because we both know by now that fiction and reality are not the same, that we’re creating somebody else’s lives that doesn’t have anything to do with us, that their drama is not our drama. We have our drama, but it’s not their drama. And we’re not combining both things. This is not a psychotherapy exercise. It’s a work of creation. It’s about the commitment of being creative, being imaginative, and giving yourself as a tool to tell somebody else’s story.

Speaking of collaboration, the last time you were in the same film as Stephen Graham was for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). Here you share some delightfully uncomfortable scenes. What marks him out as a distinctive actor?

He’s powerful, honest, a grounded man. When you create, and you know a man has a great empathy to others, is a very loving spirit and is also fun to be around, it’s a gift. That’s why he’s the actor he is – because he can go as far as he wants into any kind of character, because his soul can expand as much as he wants.

The Beloved and Bunker are both playing at the 70th BFI London Film Festival. Bunker is in UK cinemas from 19 February.