![\"\"](\"\/beta\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2011\/06\/IMG_2723.jpg\" "\\"Javier")
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I’m just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don’t say that what I am doing is art.
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My mother is an actress and that always made me a little suspicious of acting. She\u2019s been working for fifty years, and when I was young I saw everything. I saw years and years of unemployment with three kids. The profession is so fucking hard. People read about the actors that work but that\u2019s only five per cent of them. <\/p>\n
The whole Oscar thing is 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, \u2018What is that doing there?\u2019 It would be stupid to believe that they give it to you because you are a better man. I was just lucky.<\/p>\n
I think that those who don\u2019t believe in God try to believe in fate because you have<\/em> to have something you believe in, otherwise life can be too random. When things go really wrong I wish I could pray to someone. But I think hope comes from yourself. When you rely on yourself, in a profound way, I call that grace. <\/p>\n I remember the moment when my father died. I wasn\u2019t a very committed Catholic beforehand, and 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. My truth \u2014 what I believe \u2014 is that there are no answers here, and, if you are looking for answers, you\u2019d better choose the question carefully.<\/p>\n My parents divorced when I was young, but I don\u2019t remember it being particularly bad at the time. I guess when you grow up you understand much better how it affects you in your unconscious. A lot of therapists make a living out of it. <\/p>\n I don\u2019t need to like the characters that I play. There is this great actress in Spain called Victoria Abril, who said a line that I love which is: \u2018We, the actors, are the defending lawyers of the characters we play.\u2019 It\u2019s true. You are a lawyer. You have to defend your character. If I was defending Chigurh from No Country For Old Men, I\u2019d say he\u2019s a man with a broken soul, a broken mind, but I would prefer not to see him at a bar; I wouldn\u2019t call him to have a drink! <\/p>\n When you want to create a good performance, the key is not to make an exhibition of your skills. It’s about being honest; but it’s also about creating behaviours. We see people and we bring those people into our work. We construct people.<\/p>\n Growing up I wanted to become a painter. But after that thing with my sister, I realised that I was pretending. It is funny that in Vicky Cristina Barcelona<\/em> my character is a painter. I could never be as confident as my character in this movie, either as a painter or with the way he is with women\u2026 When I painted alongside the professional, we\u2019d do the same things but his would look amazing and mine would look like a piece of crap! You go, \u2018Why? Why him?\u2019 Well, the answer is very clear: You don\u2019t have it. You just don\u2019t have it. It\u2019s something about the fingers\u2026 I belong to acting now.<\/p>\n I listen to a lot of music, and I am a huge, huge Pearl Jam fan. The early stuff, Ten, in particular was very important to me: the music, the sound, the fury, the instincts, the thoughts, the energy, the words. I\u2019ve seen them playing four or five times now. I can\u2019t stop jumping for about three hours when they hit hard, man. I go nuts, I\u2019m in pieces and then the next time they put me together again. It\u2019s like \u2018Wallop! What a journey!\u2019 <\/p>\n My other big passion in life is rugby. Playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan. I loved to play rugby \u2014 I have many scars \u2014 but you have to quit if you want to work as an actor. I did Jam\u00f3n, Jam\u00f3n for Pedro Almod\u00f3var, and it was a great success and I kept on playing but the other players were always going, \u2018He is the guy from \u2018Jam\u00f3n, Jam\u00f3n\u2019, let’s go for him.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Don’t give me the ball, don’t give me the ball!\u2019<\/p>\n Being famous in your own country is fun at first because you’re twenty years old and everyone is giving you all this attention, but after a very brief while \u2013 I would say maybe a couple of months \u2013 I remember thinking, \u2018This is bad, there is nothing good in this\u2019, and I still think the same. I mean I’m doing this job, so it’s a contradiction, but there’s always a moment where you go, \u2018Enough. It’s only a movie, for Christ’s sake!\u2019<\/p>\n I hope for change with the election of Obama. In this modern world there has been a sheriff called George Bush who wants to kill the bad guys, like in a bad Western, but not everybody is bad. He made it into this the war between evil and good. What the fuck is that? Life is a little bit more complicated.<\/p>\n Sometimes I say to myself, \u2018What are you doing in this absurd job? Why don’t you go to Africa and help people?\u2019 But I cannot help people, because I am a hypochondriac and I don’t know how to drive a car. The only thing I can do is act, and 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 I don’t know how to do anything else. <\/p>\n Words: Will Lawrence<\/p>\n A full version of this article first appeared in<\/em> Wonderland #17, Feb\/Mar 2009<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don’t say that what I am doing is art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9416],"tags":[168,194,105,143],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n