In the barely 85 minutes that Javier Bardem's last work lasts (Las Palma de Gran Canaria, 1969), there are about 4,000 ways to be Javier Bardem. Because, in its own way and with the distance you want, acting is also being. "The dream of every actor," he reflects, "is to change from one role to another completely. Be another. But it is so difficult. I would say completely impossible. We carry with us what we are, our fears, our limitations, our voice .. Daniel Day Lewis, for example, is a genius. I respect and admire him, but I don't see myself being the same character for six months in a row like he does. "

The quotation marks run to his profession in general and the character (or the characters, in the plural) that occupies him in ' The roads not taken' , by the British Sally Potter and that was presented on Wednesday at the Berlinale. There, next to Elle Fanning and Salma Hayek, gives life to a man punished for a strange disease (frontotemporal dementia) that, things of memory, makes him another man. Always different, always Javier Bardem . "The film is inspired by what the director's brother suffered. I prepared myself by spending a season in contact with the families and with the patients themselves in Bilbao," he clarifies by way of explanation and preamble.

The movie, like it or not, ends up being a master's degree of interpretation. That and a beautiful and tortured metaphor about the job of acting. So it is strange and committed to work with memory, so it is peculiar to be one and another. "I have always been clear," he continues, "that there are things about you that you can never use in your work. Recently I was told that a well-known actress reflected on the fact of using the death of a child to give life to precisely one mother who has lost her son And it is impossible because that pain is irreproducible and if it were it would be unbearable for more than five minutes I prefer to think that acting is behaving like a child does: introducing himself without excuses or judgments or justifications in a character. .. and play".

He tells (or, better, recounts) that, in spite of how reflected everything is, he arrived where he is by chance. Remember that he was serving as a companion to his sister when he ended up as the protagonist of 'The ages of Lulu' . " It did not help me to tell the casting that I was not an actor," he says. He also remembers how he ended up in the American industry and yes, it was because of a pure accident that occurred with Julian Schnabel in New York and from there to the Reinaldo Arenas of 'Before nightfall'.

And so on so far Hernán Cortés (that explains the pointed and gallant beard) awaits you for next week. "Right now I am involved in all kinds of readings about Hernán Cortés. And it is fascinating to see how despite all the time that has passed there is no possible agreement. The discussion and the wound in Mexico are still open," he says, it is taken a second and adds a reflection: "And it is even more fascinating to observe how the extreme right, from Brazil to all of Europe, reproduces the same behavior of the conquerors. That effort to impose religion, race ... that obsession to impose the own beliefs at any price ... Anyway, from these powders these muds ". And there, for now, leave it.

Account Bardem, who knows if in anticipation of what will come, who understands those who do not think like him. "If they attack me later, I no longer find out. I have long decided to concentrate on other things, on books. In my house, screens are only used 20 minutes a day. There is too much information," he says. And he continues, but already laughing: "Now I prefer that my lawyer be the one to take care of it. That if they accuse me of driving a polluting car through Madrid, then that he be the one to prove that it is a lie. The photo that came out is from Los Angeles from years ago. " For the rest, and to avoid misunderstandings, he acknowledges that he was once wrong: "When I insulted a politician who does not think like me, I did wrong. It was an impulse that emerged from the rage of the moment and that is a mistake. Anger, I know, just destroy. "

And said which, 'The roads not taken', 85 minutes from Bardem, by Javier Bardem in vein.

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