Bold, brash, brutal. Javier Bardem’s filmography has run the gamut of powerful performances, earning critical acclaim and awards recognition. From a family of actors and filmmakers dating back to the early days of Spanish cinema, Bardem was “discovered” by iconoclastic Spanish filmmaker Bigas Luna, who cast him in machismo-pulsating roles, and made a name for himself working with the likes of Luna, Pedro Almodóvar, Álex de la Iglesia, and Fernando León de Aranoa. Bardem gained international acclaim, and his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (also the first for a Spaniard), in Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls as the Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. He became a household name over a coin toss in his Academy Award-winning turn as the quarter- and bolt-gun-wielding Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. Next stop? Bond villain, in Sam Mendes’s Skyfall. Bardem continues to push beyond the perceived limits of the film industry, working with a range of filmmakers and auteurs, refusing to be typecast but also parlaying his onscreen persona and on-and-off-screen charisma into a varied and vital career in cinema.
The Quad is proud to present this retrospective of Javier Bardem, leading up to the U.S. release of The Good Boss, which re-teams Bardem with Fernando León de Aranoa and garnered a record-breaking 20 Goya Award nominations (including Bardem’s win for Best Actor as the titular not-so-good boss of a Spanish industrial scales factory).
Co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Spain in New York.
Screenings of Jamón Jamón and Huevos del Oro are co-presented by The Bigas Luna Tribute, and co-sponsored by Durham University, U.K.