A biography for Javier Bardemhasn’t been written yet.
“The middle and working classes are paying the debt that the financial markets created.”
“And the whole Oscar thing, that is just surreal: you spend months and months doing promotion, and then come back to reality with this golden thing in your hands. You put it in the office and then you just have to look at it sitting on the shelf. And, after about two weeks, you go: 'What is that doing there?'”
“Now, there are so many movies, so many festivals, and so many awards going on, each judged with each other, like your work is worse than others and that's not fair. How can you tell what's best and what's worst from these awards? We're talking about art.”
“We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was. But give me a break, it's only a movie.”
“The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award.”
“When I was born, there was a very isolated idea of what it meant to be a man or a woman, and you belonged to one gender or the other.”
“This great imperialistic world called the United States has made us believe that an Oscar is the most important thing in the world for an actor. But if you think about it for five minutes you realise it can't be.”
“I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.”
“When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you're really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else.”
“I do a job and am lucky enough to do a job that I love, but it is a hard one. I'm not saying it is as hard as working in a coal mine, but it is still difficult in a different way. Sometimes you have to go through very strong emotional journeys and then come back to yourself. And that can be difficult to control.”
“Even in the darkest regions, people have discovered their right of freedom.”
“I don't really care where movies come from as long as they're worth making.”
“I don't like to talk about my personal life.”
“The background - your own history - is way more important than what you can achieve as a professional.”
“I live in Spain. Oscars are something that are on TV Sunday night. Basically, very late at night. You don't watch, you just read the news after who won or who lost.”
“The good thing about being an actor, and the gift of being an actor, is that you are beautifully forced to see the world with different eyes.”
“The fact that I like to make characters doesn't mean that I like to watch my characters being made, my performance.”
“I used to be a good party boy. I'm old. I'm an old man. You pay the consequences. I'm just fine with a couple of drinks, no more than that.”
“My truth - what I believe - is that there are no answers here and, if you are looking for answers, you'd better choose the question carefully.”
“I was raised not to be afraid to show emotion or imagination.”