Javier Bardem's Five Favorite Films

You can’t go wrong with that, right? It’s one of those where everything works. Everybody had to pick up their performance, including cast and technicians. And I’m a huge, huge long-time fan of Mr. Pacino so… I think it’s, along with Dog Day Afternoon, his best performance. There’s something about the movie that really transports you to a different era, like it takes you to a new place.

I’m a huge fan of the performances and that one is… I can see it all day long, see all the detail.RT: You like heavy drama, huh?

I kinda like the dramas, yeah.

RT: How many times have you seen it?

I’ve lost track. I’m 46, and I guess I started to see that movie when I was 14.

Another comedy [laughing]!RT: There are funny parts in it!

I had a chance to work with Mr. [Milos] Forman [in Goya’s Ghosts]. Again, Cuckoo’s Nest and the performances, and what the movie talks about is really amazing. I had a chance to work with Mr. Forman and he’s so funny, such an amazing person to be around. He doesn’t take himself too seriously at all. That’s the greatest thing, having the talent that he had.

RT: So you got to work with him. I assume you saw Cuckoo’s Nest before you worked with him?

Of course. I was making fun of him. The first day I was shooting with him, he started yelling at me “Cut! Cut! Is that what you’re going to do in the movie? You’re going to destroy my movie!”And then he was, “Nah, I’m joking, I’m joking. It’s ok [laughing].”

RT: Did that scare you?

Yes it did. [laughing]

RT: Like you’re going to get fired the first day.

He should have, maybe. [laughing]

It was co-written by my uncle [Juan Antonio Bardem]. It’s with the director [Luis García] Berlanga, and I think it’s a masterpiece of a movie about the Franco regime era in Spain. It is [about] a visit that is going to be paid by the American government into our country and how the little country town is preparing that welcome for the committee, the American committee. And it really is a great drawing on what it was like in the Franco regime era in Spain, it’s a masterful movie.

And the fifth one. Oh, lemme see. Oh my God. Let me be honest. I want to pick a porno [laughing]!. That would be something for a change, no?RT: I can just see me putting in a data request to make a movie page for the porno that you like the best.

You don’t see porno many times. Just five minutes of it won’t be enough. No, let me think. Oh my God, E.T.! I saw E.T. in the movie theater 25 times. I’m going to call Mr. Spielberg to give me some of the royalties [laughing]. I was totally blown away, and I remember one time I went and, I swear to God, I went for three sessions, one after the other. I step out of the movie theatre, and I will come in again, and I will step out of the movie theater and come in again. I was 12, 13. I can’t wait to show that movie to my kids.

RT: It was magical. I thought I saw it a lot of times, but it was only three.

For me, 25 times. I remember because I was doing kind of a bet with myself, how many times I would be able to see it, and I saw it recently on the TV, I just jumped into it. And it had the same emotional ache on me that it had when I was 12. Still. It’s amazing. That’s what tells you it’s a masterpiece.

RT: I saw it in the theater again and was blown away all over again, probably in one of the anniversary years. I had the same experience. It reminded me of what I felt like as a kid watching it the first time. Did you watch it with friends or alone?

Funny, good question. No, I remember quite well, I brought everyone that I knew into it, but for most of it, I was on my own. And many times I would sit in the first and second row, like really close to it. And I guess that would be one of those moments where I was going to the movie world. One of the reasons was that movie [because] I was totally blown away by a big screen world, the magic. And I have had the chance to meet Mr. Spielberg, and still I haven’t had the courage to tell him how much I love that movie.