Urgent from ‘M’: Eyes only. There is no doubt that one of the big attractions of Skyfall (2012) was the return of a very ’rounded’ antagonist for Bond, but what was the villainous nature of the main baddie in the movie? What made him ‘evil’? Award-winning actor Javier Bardem, who played the sinister Bond villain Raoul Silva in Skyfall, has spoken on a number of occasions over the years about how he approached the role.
Whoever becomes the villain in Bond 26 might want to take a leaf out of Bardem’s notebook for future reference. When Bardem was interviewed in the weekend magazine of the British newspaper The Guardian on October 13, 2012, for example, some big clues emerged about his ideas concerning Bond villainy. He also revealed that he had been offered parts in the EON franchise before, but there was clearly something about Silva that persuaded him to accept the role, together with the fact that Sam Mendes had signed up as director. The interview was conducted by Emma Brockes of the Guardian in a London hotel, as part of a special Skyfall day for the British media, where journalists were also shown short clips from the new Bond film in a viewing theatre in Soho.
The Spanish actor talked about both his role as the 007 baddie and about his acting career generally. After a career that has included the ruthless killer Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men and Bond’s nemesis Raoul Silva in the 23rd 007 movie, Brockes asked Bardem whether he found himself sinister? ‘Every time I wake up’, he replied, laughing loudly. ‘I look in the mirror to brush my teeth and it’s very sinister. Ugh, look at that nose; look at those eyes. Ugh, my tone of voice’.
Brockes noted that Bardem’s casual self-mockery made him seem a very European kind of actor, away from the worst narcissism of his profession and the usual atmosphere of Hollywood. Bardem lives in Madrid with his famous actress wife Penelope Cruz and, when he is not acting, he helps run a bar with his sister. He apparently calls flying to Los Angeles ‘going to the office’ and tries to stay out of Hollywood as much as possible.
According to Brockes, being hired for the new Bond movie Skyfall was a big deal for Bardem, ‘even though he’d been offered parts in previous films in the franchise’. This time, however, the confluence of a good script and Mendes as the director had persuaded him to say yes. The clips shown to journalists in a 3-minute showreel were mostly scenes with Judi Dench as ‘M’, and Bardem commented that appearing in scenes with Dame Judi was like standing in front of a water cannon: ‘When she opens her mouth and looks you in the eyes, you’re like, “Wow! This is a big deal”. You feel a force of nature against your chest’. Bardem also said there was a scene in the movie in which he appeared with both Dench and Daniel Craig: ‘And I looked at them both and forgot the lines. There was a silence and Sam said, “Cut, what’s wrong?” And I said, “I’m sorry, man, I just realised I’m in a James Bond movie and M and James Bond are looking at me’.
At another point in the interview, Bardem was asked about how he managed to do such a good psychopath. He responded that it’s a question of going back in your mind to when you’ve felt ‘murderous rage’, as everyone has, and just drawing it out. He said that this was the ‘fun part’ of his job – emotional tourism. He added that it was about getting ‘out of yourself for a little while’, and seeing the world through different eyes.
From Raoul With Hate
There is no doubt this came through strongly on screen. Silva was genuinely menacing, a man who was out for complete revenge against what he saw as ‘betrayal’ by his old MI6 boss ‘M’. As far as he was concerned, this had been a ‘sinful’ act: at one point he demanded that Judi Dench’s ‘M’ should: ‘Think on your sins’. His very first encounter with Craig’s 007, where he enters a long room and appears to walk towards Bond for what seems like an eternity, had cinema audiences genuinely beguiled. The tension was palpable, helped by some dialogue about ‘rats’ and a seemingly homoerotic interest in Bond’s body on the part of Silva. The combination of charm and sinister threat that oozed from Silva’s every pore was also put to excellent effect in the rest of the movie. Despite accusing his former boss ‘M’ of sins, in a sense Silva was the ultimate sinner, happy to shoot anybody who stood in his way with real relish. The psychopathic drive at the core of Silva’s personality was also on full display in the climax to the film which took place at Bond’s ancestral home, Skyfall Lodge in Scotland, and ended in the tragic death of ‘M’ in the nearby Bond family chapel.
Speaking to the popular film magazine Total Film a year after the premiere of Skyfall, Bardem commented: ‘I’m very proud of Skyfall. I think it’s a great movie’. The movie’s incredible box office returns more than warranted such a view.
For those in search of further insights into Bardem’s approach to villainy and to playing evil baddies in general, in October, 2018, Bardem gave a series of interviews about his role as the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in Loving Pablo. In an interview for Esquire magazine, for example, Bardem revealed that his ‘secret’ to playing the perfect bad guy is to convey a total lack of empathy, something which, he said, is the ‘scariest thing’. He explained further: ‘At least with a glimpse of empathy, you can pray to that; when there is none, there’s nothing you can do’. Bardem added that he cannot stand any kind of violence in real life: ‘It’s funny because I do movies like No Country For Old Men or Loving Pablo, and I can understand the true sense of violence, but it is something that gets me nervous. I don’t like seeing violence or seeing fights. I can’t watch a violent movie’.
Bardem’s contribution to Skyfall certainly helped make it a ‘classic’ Bond film, and the chemistry between Bardem, Craig and Dench worked especially well. Indeed, there was much critical acclaim for Skyfall, which went on general release in the UK in October, 2012. This included high praise from two former James Bond actors, Sir Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. In November, 2012, Sir Roger, on a tour to promote his book Bond on Bond, said Daniel Craig was ‘a superb Bond’ and Skyfall ‘was an extraordinary piece of motion picture’. Similarly, Dalton, interviewed in December, 2012, made it clear he had been ‘hugely impressed’ with the film, adding: ‘On almost every level this Bond movie is right at the forefront of what cinema is capable of’.
The main cast of Skyfall at the UK premiere in 2012.