When introducing Javier Bardem at the Toronto Film Festival in September, Ethan Coen couldn't resist poking a little fun at the actor. "Welcome the Iberian Lee Van Cleef," Coen joked, causing Bardem to burst into laughter. "That was the first time I heard that," the Spanish actor says a couple of days later from his Toronto hotel. "I guess it's since I'm the bad guy in the Western."
"Bad guy" is a mild description for Anton Chigurh, the unstoppable and unapologetic killer at the center of No Country for Old Men. Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, the bloody Western is adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy and set in 1980. The story centers on a local hunter named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who discovers a satchel filled with more than $2 million from a drug deal gone wrong. After taking the cash, he is relentlessly pursued by Chigurh, a twisted killer with a bizarre code of honor. Chigurh's cold, detached manner is as unique as his strange appearance. "That was one of the main problems to solve," Bardem says of the character's look. "It's a great book, but Anton Chigurh isn't described at all, except the color of his eyes, which are described as blue and nothing like mine."
Bardem comes from a family of actors and filmmakers, but his dream was to be a painter. In need of money, he began doing background work and was offered a role in the 1990 film Las Edades de Lulú (The Ages of Lulu). Despite international success with the 1992 hit Jamón, Jamón opposite Penélope Cruz, Bardem found himself questioning whether he wanted to continue acting. "I was a little overwhelmed. They gave me an award for my first movie, and I was like, 'What is this?' " he recalls. A trip to the theatre to see a Coen brothers film turned him around: "I remember watching Fargo and saying to myself, 'I want to keep on going because there are people out there who can write great characters and circumstances for an actor to really be their best.' But I also thought, 'It's not going to happen. They're American; you're in Spain.' " When Bardem was nominated for an Oscar for Before Night Falls in 2001, he crossed paths on the campaign trail with the brothers, nominated for the screenplay of O Brother, Where Art Thou?. "Of all the people I met, the Coens were my favorite," Bardem enthuses. "So imagine how I felt when I got the call. I was like, 'This is impossible.' "
The call was to ask the actor to fly to New York to visit the Coens and discuss the role of Chigurh. Bardem was hesitant, only because of the violence in the film. "In the almost 20 years I've been working, I've only done two movies where I killed someone, and I didn't particularly like it," he says, adding "But they are the Coens! I went to see them at a restaurant, and it was such a fun lunch. It was like, 'Let's talk about everything but the movie.' So I said, 'I'm not going to miss this.' And I went to the set like, 'Okay, guys, here I am. Do what you want with me.' I totally trusted in them."
Chigurh might just be the most menacing character to ever pull off a Prince Valiant haircut. Bardem came to the set with long hair, having grown it out to give the brothers several options. "I went to the makeup trailer, and the hairdresser made a very fast cut on my hair," Bardem recalls. "He did this in five minutes; it was his idea. I loved it, and the Coens loved it, and that gave us a way to go. Because when you see somebody with that haircut, it's clear something is a little out of sync. Something is wrong there. I saw him as a frame behind everyone else; the pace is a bit broken. But he's sharp."
From the beginning, the Coens didn't want Bardem to do an American accent, but they wanted to reduce his Spanish accent. "In some ways, Anton is a foreigner too," Bardem says. "We don't really know where he is coming from or where he is going to. One of the things we discovered was lowering the voice would be a good way for me to cut the accent and also find a tone where there's a lack of emotion. He's empty of feeling."
In one of the best scenes in the movie, Chigurh interrogates Moss' landlord, asking, "Where does he work?" repeatedly, without ever changing his fluctuation. Bardem manages to make the scene terrifying yet comedic. "The tone is the same every time he asks. He's like, 'Until I get the answer, I won't stop,' " Bardem says. "It's one way of showing that no one's going to stop him." Bardem pauses to smile before adding, "That's so Coen, no?"
Finding Chigurh's clothing was, like the haircut, a quick process. "The clothing test took 20 minutes, I think," he says of the denim outfit he sports for most of the film. "I have to say, we actors are such a pain in the ass, but we also have our reasons. We want to feel comfortable wearing the skin of that guy. Sometimes we put fancy things or other people's ideas of clothing and makeup on. And at the end of the day, it's me who's going to embody that character, so you have to fight for it. In this case, I saw the clothing and loved the lack of personality to it. That helped me to say, 'He's like a ghost.' Everybody did their job extremely well and helped me to do my job."
Bardem notes that shooting on location in Texas for three months and being the only foreigner helped him slip into Chigurh's skin. "The crew was so nice, but you're in a distant landscape playing a distant man, and you become distant," he says. "So it was a little easier to play a broken soul emotionally detached from feeling."
Tell Bardem it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role and he laughs. "That's funny, because before I played it, no one could imagine me doing it," he says, once again giving all the credit to the Coens. "It's an attractive character to watch. That doesn't have to do with the performance; it has to do with the roots of the character. The book, the way it was translated into the script, and the way the Coens surround him makes him uncomfortable to watch but so interesting. This same character in other people's hands, it could have been a cliché." Surely, Bardem deserves a little credit for bringing such a fascinating role to life? "I did my job," he says simply. "But it was in the right hands. When I see the movie, I'm so happy and honored. There are moments where I almost start to cry; I'm so proud to be part of their movie."
