Javier Bardem pitched sexual edge for Skyfall villain Silva
Javier Bardem wanted his James Bond villain to fancy Bond himself.
Bardem, who played Raoul Silva in Skyfall, said he pitched the idea to director Sam Mendes before the shoot. His take was simple. Silva was trying to destroy the world, but he also wanted to have sex with Bond, Bardem told a BFI London Film Festival Screen Talk, as reported by Variety on Oct. 11.
Mendes did not say yes on the spot. “Let me talk to the studio,” Bardem recalled him replying.
The studio agreed. Bardem called the decision “very brave” for letting that sexual dynamic into a Bond film.
It survives in the interrogation scene. Silva, described by Variety as a vengeful cyberterrorist, circles a Bond tied to a chair, unbuttons his shirt and strokes his chest. “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Silva says. Bond, played by Daniel Craig, answers flatly: “What makes you think this is my first time?”
The moment was written into a film directed by Sam Mendes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with Craig as 007. Screenwriter John Logan later discussed the homoerotic subtext in the Bond series, according to Digital Spy. Skyfall went on to become Craig’s highest-grossing Bond film.
Bardem also admitted to nerves on the set. He said he forgot his lines during Silva’s prison-cell scene opposite Craig and Judi Dench as M. That is no small audience to dry in front of.
The talk ranged across a long career. Bardem is the first Spanish actor to win the best actor Oscar, for No Country for Old Men. He holds a record five leading-actor prizes at Spain’s Goya Awards and has twice won the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival.
Acting started early. He made his first appearance at age five in the 1974 Spanish television series El Pícaro, which starred his mother Pilar Bardem.
He was speaking with two new films at the London festival. They are Florian Zeller’s Bunker, co-starring Penélope Cruz, and Esteban Martinez’s The Beloved. The festival runs until Oct. 17.
