When Javier Bardem announced last summer that he was going to make his theater debut, one could imagine that he would do so with a starring role in a major production. It is what is expected of a movie star with an Oscar, a Golden Globe and many other international recognitions. But Bardem has preferred to do it his way: in a neighborhood theater with barely 100 seats, with short texts by Chekhov, a choral cast and a prestigious director, Juan Carlos Corazza, but not in the media.
It is not strange in Bardem's career and character. His career has been spent in cinema, but above all he is an actor and has experienced theater since childhood with his mother, the actress Pilar Bardem, although he has waited until he was 57 years old to face a live audience. It becomes evident that he could not make this leap any other way when he is seen next to Corazza, the teacher and director with whom he took his first steps at the age of 20, whom he addresses as “teacher, mentor and dearest friend.” They hug, take care of each other, joke and exude a plethora of complicity during the photo session for this interview, which takes place at the epicenter of their common adventure: Espacio Zafra in Madrid, the room where they rehearse Chekhov, Chekhov!, on the eve of its premiere on November 19.
—I have been clear about it from minute zero. I have had proposals here and there to do theater with various directors, but I have always said no. Maybe also because I felt the obligation to do it as expected, in a great theater. But if it was with someone, it would be with Juan Carlos. And in a space that was ours. That we could manage as we wanted, with the topics we wanted and at the time we considered appropriate.
After fantasizing for years, the moment has come. Corazza, together with the actor and other partners, opened Espacio Zafra in February 2025 and the project began to take shape. "Now I feel eager, ready. Like the desire, pleasure and adventure of this game are far above fear and insecurity," explains the actor. He lives it as an experience of freedom and learning: "For me, all this is new, absolutely everything. I am excited like a child with new shoes, because at 57 years old I find myself discovering things and putting myself in a place of vulnerability that makes me stronger. Precisely for that reason: for accepting vulnerability and working with it, not fighting. And with four colleagues whom I have known for years and who are in the same thing."
It refers to Alicia Borrachero, Rafael Castejón, Manuela Velasco and Ben Temple, also trained with Corazza. They all base their work on the teachings of a teacher who has guided the careers of many actors who today succeed both in film and on stage, since he opened his studio in Madrid in 1990 after emigrating from Argentina. For example: Elena Anaya, Silvia Abascal, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Susi Sánchez, Juana Acosta, Alberto Ammann, Alba Flores or Consuelo Trujillo. Others come to him to prepare specific works, among them Penélope Cruz, Bardem's partner for two decades and mother of his two children. Bardem, of course, too: his iconic character in No Country for Old Men, for which he won the Oscar for best supporting actor in 2008; that of The Sea Inside (2004), by Alejandro Amenábar; Biutiful (2010), by Alejandro González Iñárritu, or Skyfall (2012), by Sam Mendes.
Corazza remembers that when Bardem arrived at his studio, almost newly opened, its conditions were already visible. "His strength on stage, his very vibrant voice. In his first year there was already a taste in him, an instinct for a lively performance, not stuffy, not corseted, not solemn. A search for quality in acting, but from humility and simplicity. Let's say that he came not only to train to be successful and act better, but for the pleasure of researching. Let's see what happens, see what appears. He likes to work," he says.
Born fortuitously in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria due to a temporary move by his parents, Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (his full name) had grown up in Madrid and at that time he played rugby and studied at the Official School of Arts and Crafts. One day, leaving the bathroom of the legendary Café Comercial, someone asked him if he was an actor. Belonging to a family of artists, he had made sporadic appearances on television and film, but his answer was a resounding no. From his debut, at the age of five in the series El pícaro, directed and starring the late Fernando Fernán Gómez, there remains a famous anecdote: he had to laugh when they pointed a gun at him, but the gesture scared him and he started crying. Bardem remembers Fernán Gómez's reaction (imitating him quite well): “Nothing's wrong, let him, he's a dramatic actor!”
Despite everything, that day at the Café Comercial they offered him a test because they were looking for someone with his physique for a brief appearance in a movie. He showed up and they chose him. Shortly after, he accompanied his sister Mónica to a casting and was invited to appear again. He was elected again. In 1990, director Bigas Luna offered him his first relevant role in The Ages of Lulú, where his mother was also present. This is how Javier Bardem was born, the last to join a long saga of actors and filmmakers that included, in addition to his mother, his grandparents Matilde Muñoz Sampedro and Rafael Bardem, his uncle Juan Antonio, his cousin Miguel and his brothers, Carlos and Mónica. Then everything came crashing down: fame, one job after another, international repercussion, awards inside and outside of Spain. In all that time, he never stopped attending Corazza's small studio in Madrid.
The long and close relationship between the actor and his teacher has a lot to do with the choice of Chekhov for Bardem's debut. Firstly, because Corazza returns again and again to the Russian author, both as a director in eight different productions and in numerous rehearsals and exercises with his students. "It seems corny, but it is love. Chekhov is such a meticulous portraitist of the variety of people who inhabited his time, that he still portrays us. With depth and sensitivity, with a sense of truth and compassion. I always find in him the possibility of understanding and learning something about the human condition," explains Corazza. Also about the art of interpretation: "Their texts faced a performance supported by declamation and imposition. They asked for something more organic, with a logic and a type of expressiveness that did not admit stiffness or exaggeration. There is in them an everyday life that requires naturalness: people eat, drink, talk nonsense; and meanwhile, their lives are ruined or they find happiness. I think that stimulated a renewal and greatly influenced Stanislavski,” he continues.
At this point, Corazza gets up elated and takes down a photo from the wall of his office: "Look, here is Javier sitting in Chekhov's chair. And I'm in Stanislavski's." It was during a trip they made 15 years ago to the Moscow Art Theater, where Stanislavski laid the methodological foundations of modern interpretation at the end of the 19th century.
Chekhov, Chekhov! It integrates short works and stories by the Russian author, including The Bear, Petition for a Hand or Tragic Despite Himself, adapted by Corazza. They are all filled with humor and a theme: the relationships between men and women, crossed by the misogyny of the time. "We keep it in mind in the adaptation, in that these men do not look good at all as human beings. We look for doors to express this. To try to raise awareness of the pain of women at that time, with so much oppression, so little respect and such a limited place in society," explains the director.
Choosing short plays, rather than one of Chekhov's great dramas, is a very thoughtful decision. "We wanted the work to be coherent with the meaning of what we do. To coincide with who we are. Chekhov greatly appreciated short pieces and did not consider them to be minor, because in brevity and simplicity he found a way to show the essence of his characters. That is what we also seek: simplicity. We do not want to use a set or costumes that reflect the period in a finished way, but rather to evoke some images that remind us of it. But here and now, in a nearby, small room, where the The intimacy of the encounter fosters something essential in theater: being together,” summarizes Corazza. At his side, Bardem agrees: "Theater for me is a way of sharing. Exposing my inabilities, my limitations and my defects. Also my virtues, demonstrating and sharing them. For those who want to see it. That's why we haven't done a Hamlet or a big event. I'm going to go out there with what I have, with what I am and with what I can. No more, no less. And I hope it's interesting."
But even in such intimate spaces, a common illness among actors must be managed: stage fright. Bardem does not hide that he is afraid. "That's there. I know that the question before leaving will be: 'Why the hell am I doing this?'. And there will only be one answer: 'I want to leave'. It's inevitable. But then something else happens, the magic that you were born for this, whether you like it or not. And your job is to be a communicator, in this case of words, concepts, dreams, very beautiful and elevated images, with these texts, this intimacy, this space, this group and this director. You go with all the fear, but also with the pleasure of knowing yourself in a very special place, which is not a purely professional place, but a place of search and experimentation.”
The actor also trusts Corazza in this: “He knows how to make the actor be where he needs to be: creating, having fun, so as not to have his attention focused on something that is not going to do him any good.” He laughs when reminded of the habit he has of moving his toes when faced with a difficult situation: "To touch the ground. And breathe and breathe," he explains.
Another aspect of Chekhov that captivates them is that in his works they glimpse a “caretaker.” As a doctor, nature lover and literary ecologist. A link can be found in this with Bardem's activism, who has raised his voice on numerous occasions and in difficult contexts, such as when he shouted "Free Palestine" at the last Oscar ceremony. "Well, I would like to be much more of a caregiver, but that's what you have to be worth. When you go to a public hospital and see what those professionals are handling every day: that's being a caregiver. And on top of that we treat them badly and pay them little. Or when you go with Doctors Without Borders to a vaccination campaign in Ethiopia. You hallucinate. They don't sleep. I'm not a caregiver at all. What I try to do is shed light on those things that I think deserve care: human rights, the planet and so many other things," confess.
Artistically, that also has a reflection. "We always try not to condemn or save a character. Nor judge them," says Corazza. “Even when it is the bad guy, we try not to make it a closed profile, but rather understanding that there is a humanity there that went astray at some point,” adds Bardem. "In any case, I don't think I've done any character in which I haven't put myself in evidence. You have to put your own to make it personal. I'm not talking about getting hooked on your psychodrama, which is one of the things I've learned thanks to my teacher. You always, especially when you're young, think that if you don't suffer it's meaningless and it's not good, but it's the opposite. I'm talking about you having to find something very intimate to be able to do it. Sometimes with better luck and sometimes worse. Sometimes with very difficult materials and others with closer experiences, like that father from The loved one [recent film by Rodrigo Sorogoyen]. Because I am a father and I have been a son.
This is the actor who is going to face a live audience for the first time at 57 years old. A man, according to his teacher, "who has become more and more friends with himself. Enjoying life and his profession more."
—I have also seen that the noise of the enormous and well-deserved success you have had has distracted you little. That he hasn't left it in the clouds for too long. Surely, a fundamental factor in staying grounded has been the beautiful family he has formed, in which there is a lot of care from everyone. But at the same time I see that a purity of soul remains intact: in relation to search, honesty, truth and true love for the profession and for humanity. It has always been there and has never lost it.
The actor asks for a reply.
—If I have grown anything, apart from my family, my friends and my therapy, it is because I have this teacher who is a gift to me. The teacher who indicates the path with which one fights, rebels, contradicts it, but to which you always return. It's not just teaching a technique, it's humanizing the actor. Actors are difficult, ambitious, sometimes we are hard, tense, difficult, angry. To reduce that and let the truth, the vulnerability, come out is very difficult.
