Javier Bardem says he first said no to Skyfall, then pitched a flirtatious Silva
Javier Bardem first said no to playing the James Bond villain Raoul Silva in Skyfall.
The actor told a Screen Talk audience at the BFI London Film Festival that nerves were behind the refusal. He wondered what he was doing in a Bond film and what he could bring to it, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
He changed his mind after sitting down with director Sam Mendes for a reading of the 2012 film. That meeting turned into a pitch.
Bardem proposed that Silva's menace should run through sexuality. Instead of trying to destroy the world, he suggested, Silva wants to seduce Mr Bond. Mendes told him he would take the idea to the studio and get back to him.
The studio said yes. Bardem described the decision as very brave, pointing to the interrogation scene where Silva suggestively strokes the thighs of a tied-up Daniel Craig, who played Bond. In the story, Silva is the villainous former agent of M, played by Judi Dench.
Nerves struck again on set. Bardem said he forgot his lines when Mendes first called action because it suddenly hit him: he was in a James Bond movie, acting opposite Dench. He realised in that instant where he was.
He was just as open about another famous role, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, for which he won the Oscar for best supporting actor. Half of that Oscar belongs to Gene Jones, he said. Jones appears in only one scene, the four-minute coin-toss encounter with Chigurh, yet Bardem credited him with shaping the performance.
What makes this stand out is how much of Silva came from that one conversation. For fans, this means the film's most talked-about scene was not in the first plan. It was an actor's gamble that needed a director and a studio to agree.
The talk was part of the 70th BFI London Film Festival, whose special events run from 7 to 18 October, according to the BFI. Bardem's Screen Talk accompanies his two latest films, The Beloved and Bunker, both Gala entries at this year's festival, the BFI said.
Skyfall went on to set the record for the biggest UK weekend box office takings of any James Bond film, Reuters reported in October 2012.
