Javier Bardem Quotes

And the whole Oscar thing, that is just surreal: you spend months and months doing promotion, and then come back to reality with this golden thing in your hands. You put it in the office and then you just have to look at it sitting on the shelf. And, after about two weeks, you go: 'What is that doing there?'

I live in Spain. Oscars are something that are on TV Sunday night. Basically, very late at night. You don't watch, you just read the news after who won or who lost.

You shall love. Whether you like it or not.

I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.

I've always said that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan.

I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.

Age has no reality except in the physical world.

The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time.

Only unfulfilled love can be romantic

I will work with a director who has good material because at the end of the day, that's what counts.

I look in the mirror and I don't see a sex symbol.

I just see a guy who looks like he's been beaten with a baseball bat. I mean, is this the face of a sex symbol? They say that because I work in the movies.

The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater.

That's the only principle meaning of any award.

Now, there are so many movies, so many festivals, and so many awards going on, each judged with each other, like your work is worse than others and that's not fair. How can you tell what's best and what's worst from these awards? We're talking about art.

But don't call me an actor. I'm just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don't say that what I am doing is art.

I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable.

The only thing I can do is act, but it's not something I even feel comfortable doing. It costs me a lot, because I'm a shy person, even if I don't look it.

[That night] I was sitting by Jack Nicholson with my long list of thanks, and I said, `I'm so nervous. I don't know what to say if I go up there.' He said, `Don't get emotional, drop the names, and dedicate it to your mother.'

I think the most difficult love begins with one's self.

How you treat yourself is something you bring to your relationships.

We live in the moment now where this whole movie business is crazy.

My truth - what I believe - is that there are no answers here and, if you are looking for answers, you'd better choose the question carefully.

I used to be a good party boy. I'm old. I'm an old man. You pay the consequences. I'm just fine with a couple of drinks, no more than that.

A part of being an actor is I people watch.

I like to observe their behaviour, watch their reactions on the street and see how they talk to each other, and that's impossible when they are looking back at you. I used to enjoy taking the train and watching people in their own minds, struggling with themselves.

I am always saying, 'I don't believe in God;

I believe in Al Pacino.' And that's true. If I ever get a phone call saying 'Would you like to work with Al Pacino?' I would go crazy.

When I see myself at 14 years old I can put my hands on my head and think: 'How could I have done that?' but at that time it had sense for me. You do the same when you're 20. And now, when you look at people who are 20 years old you ask yourself: 'Was I like that? Was I really like that?'

Every time I wake up, I see myself like somebody beat me up.

I wanted to become a painter for a while. I think it was because I was lazy.

The earliest memories I have from my childhood are of my mum getting ready to go on stage. I must have been about five and I would watch her vomiting backstage on opening night, and then the next minute she became Isabella, the Queen of Spain. At the time I remember thinking, 'What kind of schizophrenic job is this?' Now it all makes sense.

Really, I don't see this heart-throb thing at all.

I don't think an actor needs to necessarily go through his things to do his job.

I think it's way more important to imagine. And then, when you're imagining, your experiences, your images and your own personal things will show up, but you keep imagining. You don't get stuck in your own personal things, otherwise you are telling your story in every character, and that's not interesting for anybody.

All of the good movies are based on how that story was told.

And you cannot do it with a bad script, that's for sure, no matter who.

What does my performance have to do with Russell Crowe's? Nothing.

If I play Gladiator and we all play Gladiator with Ridley Scott in the same amount of time, maybe we have a chance to see who did it best.

I'm not the kind of actor that gets crazy with [directors'] names, what draws me toward a project is the material itself.

Celebrity is very weird.

There is no middle ground in Hollywood;

you're a failure or you're a success. That mentality is wild.

I enjoy my job as long as I can create a character, otherwise it's boring.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created.

They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

But I remember the moment when my father died.

I wasn't a very committed Catholic beforehand, but when that happened it suddenly all felt so obvious: I now believe religion is our attempt to find an explanation, for us to feel more protected.

You don't need a man, you need a champion.

When you're working with the best, it helps you to be good because then you are focusing on what you have to do.

I think we are living in selfish times.

I'm the first one to say that I'm the most selfish. We live in the so-called 'first world,' and we may be first in a lot of things like technology, but we are behind in empathy.

My concern is to continue respecting my work as I've done since I began as an actor and I could only do that if I'm strong enough to keep on doing what I think best in an artistic way.

Some quality performances and movies have a chance to be rewarded, but it's not like it's a bible.

I don't know how to drive a car.

In 22 years of acting, I've only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I'd give it back and say, 'Take this s**t out of my hands!' There were laughing, like they couldn't believe I was supposed to be the villain.

I don't really care where movies come from as long as they're worth making.

I've played people that are on the line of evil and good, but that's life.

We are always playing with the good and the bad. I see them as people. I don't see them as caricatures. I try to not make them caricatures. Maybe I fail, but I try to see what' behind them. Would I play the hero? A superhero? I don't think so. But, I play good guys. There are some there, but you have to look.

An award doesn't necessarily make you a better actor.

I hate violence. When I hold a gun, I feel death in my hands, but it's fun to pretend in the movies.

We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was.

But give me a break, it's only a movie.

As an actor, you can't judge. A great actress from Spain said, "We, the actors, are lawyers of the characters we play. We have to defend them, no matter what."