The range shown by Oscar winner Javier Bardem this year isn’t comparable to another star. From Monsters‘ terrifying José Menendez, to King Solon in Netflix’s Spellbound.
Even with playing some bad-guy characters in the past such as the mop-toped killer Chiguruh in No Country for Old Men, ghostly pirate hunter Captain Salazar in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and the cyberterrorist Raoul Silva in Skyfall, playing José Menendez had its own set of challenges. Director Ryan Murphy uses a Rashomon-style approach to tell the story of the Menendez family and the murder of José and Kitty Menendez by their sons Erik and Lyle. Murphy depicts the perspective of both parents and of the brothers’ claims of the violent and sexual abuse suffered by José.
“He was a monster,” says Bardem of José Menendez. “He did some horrible things that we know of and some horrible ones we are pretty sure of. And then there are things that we don’t know for certain, like the sexual abuse. We may think it did happen or didn’t happen. But for me, as an actor, the challenging part was to play him in a way that you could think both that he is guilty of sexual abuse or not. The audience will have to decide, as we, as citizens in the world when we see the trials will have to decide. But there is no certainty.”
Bardem himself is still uncertain about the truth of the case. He says “Some days I will think, oh yeah, for sure, [José] did it. Some days I will wake up and think, you know what? I’m not sure, and that’s why it’s so fascinating.”
Bardem also says playing José was not nearly as terrifying or traumatic as the prospect of performing in an animated musical like Spellbound. Released on Netflix on Nov.22, the film follows Rachel Zegler as Princess Ellian on a quest to reverse a spell that transformed her parents (Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem) into monsters.
“I am not a singer. I can barely sing,” Bardem admits. “I admire so much all the Broadway musical performers. How in the world can they sing, dance, and act at the same time? But this was a movie, so I could repeat as many takes as we needed…”
As a parent of 2 with his wife Penelope Cruz, Bardem has been shifting toward more PG content with roles in other films such as King Triton in the live The Little Mermaid and Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. It has become extremely meaningful to him to be able to show his children work he has been in.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and Spellbound are streaming on Netflix.
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