Javier Bardem talks exclusively about working with Ridley Scott and stepping back into a world created by Cormac McCarthy for the Home Entertainment release of The Counsellor
Hoping to make some quick cash for himself and fiancée Laura (Cruz), the ‘Counsellor’ (Fassbender) becomes embroiled in the treacherous drug underworld through suspicious middle man Westray (Pitt), close friend Reiner (Bardem) and Reiner’s sinister girlfriend Malkina (Diaz). Things quickly spiral out of control and the Counsellor soon realises that sin is a choice and that having it all could mean losing everything.
In this exclusive interview, Javier Bardem tells us about his character - Reiner, stepping back into a Cormac McCarthy world and what he learnt from working with legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott...
Javier, would you mind telling me who you play, what he wants in the film and what character flaws prevent him from succeeding?
I play Reiner, who is a businessman. He owns nightclubs and bars and restaurants and also he's linked to the underworld of cartel. He's the person who's going to bring the Counselor into the other world. But above all he is a victim himself of the wrong choices he has made in life. So the flaw in this movie for everyone is greed. Also, playing naive, and not wanting to see other peoples' suffering.
This is the second time you've worked on a film with Cormac McCarthy and his dialogue. How wonderful as an actor is it to use that dialogue?
It is very rich dialogue; also it is very challenging because he works at two levels. He goes into the intellectual level of it with very deep thoughts on many things and big statements about certain things. And also it's very emotional, because it's really dry and he goes straight to the guts kind of. So as an actor you have both covered. You have to be aware intellectually but also at the same time very organic. It's very strong material to work with.
Do you see any parallels at all between No Country For Old Men and this film? Perhaps in your character and in Cameron Diaz's character, that they're both sociopaths?
I guess I thought about it, but I guess fate, wrong decisions and consequences for those wrong decisions would be the theme or the issue that they both share. Josh Brolin in No Country got somebody else's bag full of money and ran away. Well, then Anton Chigurh showed up saying, "That's not good." Here it's kind of people doing the same, doing things that they shouldn't do and paying the consequences from it at times.
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The Counsellor is out now on Digital HD and Blu-ray/DVD on 17 March from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment