I attended the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES #PiratesLifeEvent courtesy of Walt Disney Studios. All opinions are strictly my own.
A few days before leaving for Los Angeles to attend the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES Red Carpet Premiere, we received notification of who we would be meeting and interviewing during the event. Like everyone else, I’ve been glued to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the likes watching trailers, checking out photos, and impatiently counting down the days until the 5th movie in the series releases. As I excitedly scanned the list of talent interviews, I stopped on Javier Bardem. Sure, I had seen him in the trailers for the film and I knew that I had seen him before in other movies but couldn’t place him. I admit that I am terrible with names. Faces, yes! I will see a face and remember it but names… ack, I’m a constant work in progress. After doing a little research, I recalled enjoying his performances in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, SKYFALL, and VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA; just to name a few. I couldn’t wait to meet him.
Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
As I watched PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, I couldn’t help but think how good Javier was at being bad. I think his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN confirms it. As we got deeper and deeper into the film and I thought about the smirk that I saw as he stood on stage with the rest of the cast of PIRATES, it was decided… I had to meet this guy! Which was good, since I was given the opportunity to do just that. ;)
Photo Courtesy: Walt Disney Studios
As Javier entered the room, he was met with applause and a bit of oohing and ahhing. What can I say? He’s a famous actor and he isn’t too hard on the eyes either. What I loved is that our enthusiasm energized him and he responded full force with a brilliant smile and jokes immediately. As he sat down, he looked around the room making eye contact with the 25 bloggers before him. I swear he smiled a bit bigger and perhaps winked at me a bit as he looked my way but, that may all be in my imagination…
Photo Courtesy: MomStart.com
We all settled in and it was time to get down to business. It was time to learn more about Javier Bardem and Captain Salazar.
Photo Courtesy: Walt Disney Studios
You had so much makeup packed on your face and really intense emotions during the film. Was it difficult to portray emotions through all of that makeup?
JAVIER BARDEM: Very good question, that was one of my concerns to see if my facial expression can go through the mask, but these guys did an amazing job and once I had the mask on the face, I realized that I could express myself through it, which is important. Otherwise, your performance is killed by it.
One of the things that the special effects people have done so well in this movie is that they brought magic into the performance without killing it, like the hair, it’s fantastic. I think we have gone maybe more or stronger on it, but they are writing this in the right place, so it’s there but it doesn’t kill the physicality of the performance.
Photo Courtesy: Walt Disney Studios
ON BEING CAPTAIN SALAZAR: Javier said he questioned what he could bring to the character. Then, they gave him the part and he thought it was this great thing about one same character being played in two ways. 1) He’s alive and it’s all about pride and it’s all about honor. 2) When he is dead, it’s all about betrayal and pain and revenge.
Photo Courtesy: MomStart.com
What is it like working with Johnny Depp and what was the chemistry like on set?
JAVIER BARDEM: I met him in 1999 in Mexico in Vera Cruz doing a movie called “Before Night Falls” by Julian Schnabel, and it was an inventive movie, a beautiful movie about a gay, Cuban poet that was imprisoned by the Castro regime and then he came to the states and a very important figure in the Cuban culture, also in the gay community, and there were two scenes that he came down to play for us as a favor to Julian, because he knows Julian Schnabel.
In one, he’s playing this very strong Cuban general, and another one, he plays a drag queen bon-bon. She was a drag queen that was very well known in prison in those days because she would put all the manuscripts inside her rectum. Then, she would leave the prison, take them out, and they were published. This was a real person.
Photo by Marc Flores/Getty Images for Disney
So, he went down to play that and I was in a trailer. I was leaving the trailer and I saw this beautiful blonde hair and a beautiful ass and I said that’s a beautiful ass. They said, it’s Johnny’s, and I said, it’s a beautiful ass. I don’t care! Then I said to him, I don’t know you but you’ve got a great butt. Since then, we’ve been good friends and he was a gentleman then. He was super nice, very caring, very funny, and doesn’t give himself too much importance at all.
I remember that it was so hot, we were sitting on a roof and it was summertime. It was 3 p.m. People were fainting out of the heat, and there was only one umbrella and of course the production went running to watch him with the umbrella and he was like no. The umbrella is not for me. The umbrella is for Javier because that’s the guy who has to keep shooting when I leave. You need to protect him. And that was without making too much noise about it, but I saw that and I think that talks a lot about him.
Photo Courtesy: MomStart.com
When I do the movie now, in 2015, he was the same guy except that he’s playing Jack Sparrow which is an iconic character. Watching him become Jack Sparrow, he’s so funny to watch and he will do and say anything and he will be brilliant so they had to cut the scene sometimes because I was laughing. He’s a great colleague and a beautiful guy.
Our time with Javier seemed to last only moments but I could have listened to him talk for hours. He lights up when he talks about his involvement in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES. He has a genuine love and passion when it comes to his career, role, and friends in the business. He’s a daddy, he was the captain of a national Rugby team in Spain, and he was so down to earth, it felt like we were old friends grabbing a cup of coffee. I think given the chance, he would have sat there for hours talking with us, too. Truly, a fantastic moment to share with such a great personality!
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES OPENS MAY 26, 2017
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