Javier Bardem is having a busy 12 months. Not only has he already shot a live-action version of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” but his Spanish dramedy “The Good Boss” made the shortlist for the Academy Award for International Film (selected over Pedro Almodovar’s critically acclaimed “Parallel Mothers” starring his wife, Penelope Cruz, no less). At the moment, in the U.S. he can be found in theaters and on streaming as the incomparable Desi Arnaz in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being The Ricardos.” Oh, and did we mention he had a key role this fall in Denis Villeneuve’s global sensation “Dune?”
The 52-year-old actor portrayed Stilgar, a leader of a tribe on the desert planet Arrakis in that Warner Bros. release. And like most of the cast that survived “part one,” he waited for almost two years to find out if a second installment would ever come to pass.
“I didn’t know it was going to happen or not,” Bardem says. “Actually when Denis approached me and asked me to be part of it, he told me in the first one is going to be a small role. But if there is such a thing as a second one, it will be a bigger role. And I said, ‘I don’t care. I just want to work with you. For me, it’s a dream come true to be part of the universe and directed by you.’ So when I have heard by the news that there was a second movie coming, I felt like, ‘Wow.’ The first thing that I got was a message from Josh Brolin, text message saying, ‘See you in the desert.’ O.K. I love it. I mean, of course, I’m can wait to go back to that.”
Over the course of our interview, Bardem goes into great detail about his passion for playing Arnaz, the difficulty in preparing for an Aaron Sorkin flick, deftly gets some unprompted “Good Boss” anecdotes in, and more.
_____
The Playlist: I talked to Rebecca Ferguson about five weeks ago, and I cannot tell you how ecstatic she was that the second chapter of “Dune” was greenlit. Before I get to “Being The Ricardos,” what was your reaction? Were you relieved?
Javier Bardem: Absolutely. I didn’t know it was going to happen or not. Actually, when Denis approached me and asked me to be part of it, he told me in the first one is going to be a small role. But if there is such a thing as a second one, it will be a bigger role. And I said, “I don’t care. I just want to work with you. For me, it’s a dream come true to be part of the universe and directed by you.” So when I have heard by the news that there was a second movie coming, I felt like, “Wow.” The first thing that I got was a message from Josh Brolin, text message saying, “See you in the desert.” O.K. I love it. I mean, of course I can’t wait to go back to that.
That’s awesome. Let’s talk about “Being the Ricardos.” I was at Q&A recently, and I think I heard you say that you had heard about this project when it was initially announced and reached out on your own?
Yes. I heard about it. I heard about it before it was even written by Aaron Sorkin, I think. I heard that it was going on years ago about Lucy and Desi. I knew about Lucy a little bit. The show is not as popular in Spain as it is here, but I didn’t know much about him. So, I don’t know, out of curiosity I started to watch the shows and hear him singing. And then I felt so attracted to the character. And then I was very interested to play him. Then they went to some other actors with some of them were hot Cuban origin, and which is the way it should be, by the way, I support that. But then when it came back to me, I was kind of, “O.K, I’ll do it, of course, I’m ready.” And I felt super excited and also very scared. The reigns of such an iconic character. No?
Not only that but a trailblazer in Hollywood and television history. Even before they came back to you, was there anything you found out about Desi’s life or what he’d gone through that sort of surprised you that you weren’t expecting?
I didn’t know about the mind behind the show kind of thing. The mind behind the show aspect of his [job as] the producer, the inventor, the men who create this three-camera system on the TV set that would allow the audience to watch the show without any interruption. That still today is the way we keep on doing TV shows.
It is indeed.
The live audience. I didn’t know all of that. I didn’t know how much of the music from Cuba he was able to play and share here with the United States and be so welcome with it. And the more I read about it, the more excited I was with the possibility of playing him. So, when he came to me in the shape of Aaron Sorkin’s script, which let’s not forget that, and I read it, I was absolutely taken away. I mean, blown away by the quality of the detail, like he has put into the work, into the words, into the scenes, into the characterization of Desi and Lucy.
I may have missed something over your resume, but I don’t believe you have ever sung, maybe I’m wrong?
Well, I sang in a movie called “Golden Balls.” I was singing like a Julio Iglesias song, and I sung a little bit in a movie called “Mouth to Mouth (Boca Boca).” And it was a comedy back in ’95, but not like a proper song, song.
You hadn’t done a big musical number though.
I haven’t done that. No.
So when you got the final Sorkin script and saw that that was in there, were you excited? Were you concerned?
I was shooting “The Little Mermaid” with [director] Rob Marshall where I sing.
Right.
So I would say Rob Marshall has been the very first one who bet on me singing, and I owe him that. So, when this project finally came to me, I was in the middle of singing. That being said, I was scared to death to play four songs in such a short period of time, because it was a month and a half, two months of preparation. And four songs in two months or a month and a half, I would say for someone that is not a singer is truly little of a time, but thanks to my [vocal team] we were able to put it together.
And, correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t know if you shot it yet or you’re about to shoot it, but you have another musical project that you’re doing right after that?
Yes. Now I’m a musical actor. [Laughs.] Now I just wrapped a movie called “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” which is a comedy, family comedy that it’s a musical. Yes. And I sing with the crocodile.
You talked about how you only had less than two months to prep for the film. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplays are known for how dialogue-heavy they are. Have you ever had a script that required so much memorization?
Yes, actually it was the one that I just did previous to this one, which is one called “The Good Boss,” a Spanish movie, which is the Spanish entry for the Oscars this year, that is also written by Fernando León de Aranoa, which is a great screenwriter. And the character speaks a lot. And I have to learn those long speeches. The problem here is that those speeches are in English. So it’s like, it’s a double effort, but I’m playing a foreigner with a foreign accent. And also a person who well spoke very well in English, but also had some problems of understanding or expressing himself correctly. And Aaron was aware of that. And he would help me so much in if there’s a word or a line or a structure that won’t fit, what we thought would be Desi’s way of speaking, he will be fine changing it or giving another option. But what happened to me once I read the Aaron Sorkin script is that I have to move around the room.
I was so excited. I was so wired by all the images, all the sensations, all the emotions that he was able to put together that I couldn’t read it standing, sitting down or standing, lying down. And then I have a Zoom meeting with him and I couldn’t talk. I was like, so taken by the words, by the images. And I always said to him, “If I could only say those lines once in my lifetime,” I mean, and he was very humble. But he didn’t offer me the role. And then months later, he came back to me and I was like, “Wow.” But of course, once I read it, I was poisoned by it. I was poisoned by the quality of that script. I couldn’t take it out of my mind. It’s like, “I want to play that role.”
So in the context of that, does Aaron do traditional rehearsals or because of COVID, were you guys doing Zoom round table? Like, how really are you guys even breaking it down?
Not really. I mean, he would… I think Aaron is more about casting. What he feels are the right actors to play those roles. And then here’s the material, you work with it, you come and we put it together on the scene and we shoot it. I… Also, I have to say, it’s COVID time. It was… I was in London. Nicole was in Australia. I mean, he was in Los Angeles. It was a tough situation, but we didn’t go through a very thorough rehearsal process by soup at all. We actually, Nicole and I met on a Thursday, physically, like in Los Angeles and we start shooting on a Monday. So, and that when you have to play one of the most iconic marriages in history, oh, it’s kind of scary. But again, we always joke, Nicole and I, that we don’t know each other. We are starting to know each other in the promotion time.
That’s sort of crazy.
Because back in the day, we didn’t have time to introduce ourselves. We were talking and relating to each other through Desi and Lucy. It was impossible to say, “O.K., let’s sit down and have a chat.” There was no time for that.
I know that their daughter has been very supportive of the film and both of your performances. Was it important to sort of get her sign-off? And did you talk to her beforehand? Was there anything she wanted to tell you about her dad?
She was very supportive, but also she was very critical in the sense that she won’t marry to any idea, just because. She was very, I mean, protective as she should be of her parents. And she welcomed me. She was fine with me being cast as Desi. And she texted me “If you need anything I’m here.” But I had so much, my hands were so full with the singing, the playing the congas, the guitar, the accent, the moving, the learning the lines, the scenes, the acting of it all, that I didn’t reach her once. It was until I was very much into the shooting of it all. And then she shared with me some private recordings of Desi.
Oh, wow.
With some colleagues of his. And that was very helpful because I could see that I could hear his voice, his energy. And it was exactly what we were trying to achieve in the shoot, which is he didn’t change that much from on-camera to off-camera. He was that man. He was that force of nature that we all know as Ricky Ricardo.
I’m guessing now that you’ve seen the final film it’s been worth all the effort.
Absolutely. It’s a gift. Every time I see Aaron in this Q&A thing, I hug him and I say, “Thank you. Thank you.” It’s hard to be part of a good movie. It’s not easy to belong to a good movie. And this is a good movie. The same for “The Good Boss,” by the way, I say to Fernando, “Thank you.” Which is funny, it happens to come out at the same time. It’s like a very beautiful accident. And both movies, when you see it with an audience because there’s comedy. When you hear the whole theater laughing, it’s a feeling that you’ve… I don’t know how to say it. It’s overwhelming. It’s like, “Wow, it works. It works. People are going through it. They are buying the story. They are immersing the characters.”
How do you think the movie will play in Spain when it’s released in Spain?
I think both characters are not as iconic in Spain as they are in the States. That’s for sure. But I think the bottom line of the movie is a love story between two people that really create a revolution in the TV industry in the fifties. And it’s such a beautiful landscape of Hollywood of the fifties and the way they were relating to each other, but most important, how they were as humans. How they were as people, as normal people, trying to make a living out of this business, because he was a foreigner and she was a woman. That is very relevant today and also the cancellation policy of it all with Twitter and so on. And the McCarthyism is kind of very pointed, unfortunately, today.
“Being the Ricardos” is now available worldwide on Amazon Prime Video.