Spanish actor Javier Bardem is probably best known outside his homeland for his Oscar-nominated performance as Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls and for his two outings with his fellow countryman, acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar: High Heels and Live Flesh. This year Bardem stars in Goya’s Ghosts for Milos Forman and Love in the Time of Cholera for Mike Newell and has already made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival with a striking turn as hit-man-cum-angel-of-death Anton Chigurh in Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country For Old Men. Based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, the Coens’ latest film is at once a darkly comic chase movie shot with the visual flair that is a Coen Brothers trademark and a surprisingly rueful meditation on ageing and the seemingly unequal battle between good and evil.
At the center of the story is army veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who unwisely opts to keep the $2½ million he accidentally discovers at the scene of a drug deal gone badly awry. The grizzled local Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) attempts to protect Moss from the inevitable, bloody consequences of his action, but when vengeance comes lumbering along in the considerable shape of the implacable Chigurh (Bardem gained weight for the role), the best Moss can hope for is the opportunity Chigurh throws some of his victims to try their fate with the toss of a coin. Bardem talked to us about his darkly humorous and discomfortingly effective performance as a character who, as well as being insane, sports one of the worst haircuts in the history of cinema.
Q: How aware of the Coen Brothers were you before being cast in No Country For Old Men?
A: They are my favorite directors. The first time I went to the Toronto Film Festival, which was for Before Night Falls, I met the person who became my American agent. She asked me who I wanted to work with and I told her the Coens, and she said, “Well that’s impossible because they are so deeply American.”
Q: So presumably you jumped at this part?
A: In fact, I read the script and I was reluctant because of the violence in the film, but I talked to the Coens and read the book and finally I thought that there was something behind the movie, not a message exactly, but something that if people want to see and hear it, then it’s there and it’s something about how violence can’t be stopped with violence.
Q: Chigurh is clearly out of his mind, but in order to play him did you have to find a rationale for his behavior?
A: I had to go in the direction of him being a symbolic figure, like violence itself: he comes out of nowhere and doesn’t have a meaning, he comes from nature but he isn’t part of it. So there’s no human reason for what he does because he’s part of something bigger than that, like fate or destiny.
Q: And what about his pudding bowl hairstyle? Where does that come from?
A:I liked the hair because it felt like it was part of Chigurh’s disguise that wasn’t working. He doesn’t really pay attention to the physical world, he’s clumsy in a way -- I always pictured him like a tree trunk -- because what matters to him isn’t the world around him but the destiny that he thinks rules things.
Q: Playing someone that diabolical, can you just switch the character off at the end of the day?
A:Characters stay with me in little details, so for example in this case I was unconsciously getting physically and socially detached from people, when I am the opposite of that in real life. Josh [Brolin] knew that and told me about it. It wasn’t that I became nasty or violent, just that I was isolating myself. And there was something about the location too. It was a great place and everyone was truly nice, but I don’t know whether it was me or Chigurh, but I felt strange, I felt isolated, and that sensation stayed with me for the whole shoot and that was good in terms of playing him because he doesn’t have any contact with anybody. That landscape helped me understand that he didn’t belong.
Q: The film was shot in New Mexico, wasn’t it?
A:Yes, Las Vegas, New Mexico – not Las Vegas, Nevada – and also Martha, Texas. You take a car and there are these vast plains, a whole world of desert. Of course, the Coens choose where to put the camera but you could put it almost anywhere and you would have this landscape. It’s amazing and it’s a character in the movie, no? And it’s funny because there’s all this space, but you also feel that no matter how far and how fast you run you will get caught.
Q: Many characters in the Coens’ films never stop talking yet no one wastes their words in No Country For Old Men, Chigurh least of all. Is it hard to create a character without much dialogue?
A:[Laughs] I was very happy because I had to work so hard to get rid of my Spanish accent that the fewer lines I had the better. But no, I never wanted Chigurh to speak more. Every word in the movie is important and has a meaning, and after that, I enjoyed the silences. It’s great for an actor to have the chance to be silent.
Q: How would you characterize the experience of working with the Coens?
A:There is this sense of pleasure and playing and enjoyment in working with them. There is not an inch of tension on the set, not one inch. I think that they believe that nothing good comes out of tension on set, and I think the same thing. For me at least, in order to create something, I have to be relaxed.
Q: Since they famously storyboard their films in advance, right down to deciding where the camera will be for a particular shot, does that limit your freedom as an actor?
A: I was little bit scared of that to start with but when we started I realized that there is no law being laid down. It’s much more, you know, here’s one option and if it’s good for you, then fine, if not we’ll change everything. That’s pretty good. And about the positioning of the camera, yes, they are good enough to know exactly where the best place for the camera is. There were times I would arrive on set and think, I don’t understand that, but when you get in to do the shot you realize that yes, that really is the best place for the camera.
Q: How do they divide their responsibilities as directors?
A: They are very much the same. One day one talks a bit more than the other, something like that, but you never see any contradiction or a fight. It’s like one man with two complementary heads.
Q: What was your reaction to the finished film?
A: I think audiences finish a film and seeing the film with an audience, I really enjoyed it and loved the reaction it got. I like that people want to talk about it once they have seen it.
Q: So any more plans to work in Hollywood?
A: I’m interested in working outside Spain if it’s an opportunity to do something that I couldn’t do in Spain, like this experience with the Coens. But it’s not as if I am looking to get somewhere specific, to achieve some level in Hollywood. And in English I worry that there will always be something missing for me. The language holds no memory for you, no history. Sometimes it feels like a tight suit and you can’t relax. But I also can tell that the more I work in English, the more comfortable I am getting, though I’m still glad Chigurh didn’t talk too much.
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