Javier Bardem
I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.Collection: Faith
I don't know how to drive a car.Collection: Car
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.Collection: Movies
I was raised not to be afraid to show emotion or imagination.Collection: Imagination
We live in a world of denial, and we don't know what the truth is anymore.Collection: Truth
There is no middle ground in Hollywood; you're a failure or you're a success. That mentality is wild.Collection: Failure
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.Collection: Technology
Even in the darkest regions, people have discovered their right of freedom.Collection: Freedom
You know I don't like to talk about my personal life.
I've always said I don't believe in God, I believe in Al Pacino.
I've always belonged to the street, and I always will. It's in my DNA.
I don't like to talk about my personal life.
When I was born, there was a very isolated idea of what it meant to be a man or a woman, and you belonged to one gender or the other.
I can't imagine what it would be like being James Bond 24 hours. That must be exhausting.
The background - your own history - is way more important than what you can achieve as a professional.
When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you're really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else.
Many people out there don't have a choice in choosing their friends and the people they're being manipulated by. Thank God, I have that choice. I can use my judgment and choose.
I'm a great believer in stunt doubles. They do an amazing job.
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.
An award doesn't necessarily make you a better actor.
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.
When you know people are really at peace with who they are and what they do, they collaborate and want to help you to improve.
I retired from rugby because I was old and getting really slow.
I've always said that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan.
The good thing about being an actor, and the gift of being an actor, is that you are beautifully forced to see the world with different eyes.
I enjoy my job as long as I can create a character, otherwise it's boring.
The middle and working classes are paying the debt that the financial markets created.
Everybody in Spain is sick of me. But in America, there's curiosity about the new kid on the block who doesn't speak English very well. The attention makes me feel vulnerable, which is something I hadn't felt in a while. But I like it.
I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.
Imagine the situation between Israel and Palestine. It's such a big mess. You can be on one side or the other. But what's clear is that there's an urgent need for a solution there and that's been dragging on for so long.
Every time I wake up, I see myself like somebody beat me up.
I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.
I have this problem with violence. I've only done one movie in almost 20 years where I killed people. It's called Perdita Durango. It's a Spanish movie. I'm very proud of the movie, but I felt weird doing that.
I don't believe in stereotypes. Most of the time, stereotypes are just that.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 will work with a director who has good material because at the end of the day, that's what counts.
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.
The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award.
Some quality performances and movies have a chance to be rewarded, but it's not like it's a bible.
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.
We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was. But give me a break, it's only a movie.
I don't really care where movies come from as long as they're worth making.
Celebrity is very weird.
We live in the moment now where this whole movie business is crazy.
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.
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.