An award doesn't necessarily make you a better actor.
— Javier Bardem
I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.
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.
The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award.
I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.
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.
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.
Celebrity is very weird.
I don't really care where movies come from as long as they're worth making.
Some quality performances and movies have a chance to be rewarded, but it's not like it's a bible.
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.
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 don't know how to drive a car.
This great imperialistic world called the United States has made us believe that an Oscar is the most important thing in the world for an actor. But if you think about it for five minutes you realise it can't be.
I enjoy my job as long as I can create a character, otherwise it's boring.
We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was. But give me a break, it's only a movie.
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.
I will work with a director who has good material because at the end of the day, that's what counts.
I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.
Sometimes I say to myself, what are you doing in this absurd job? Why don't you go to Africa and help people? But I cannot help people, because I am a hypochondriac.
