Javier Bardem: pass notes No 3,275

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/shortcuts/2012/nov/04/javier-bardem-pass-notes

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<strong>Age:</strong> 43

<strong>Appearance:</strong> Murderous, weird-nosed, attractive.

<strong>Is this that Spanish actor who's the villain in the new Bond film?</strong> Yes.

<strong>Funny blond hair, but everyone still fancies him. </strong>That's right. Almost everybody.

<strong>Name one exception!</strong> Well, I think Rafael Hernando, a senior deputy in Spain's governing People's party, has probably gone off him now.

<strong>More of a <em>brunet</em> man, is he? </strong>Perhaps. Mainly I think he doesn't like what Bardem had to say about the government's employment law reforms.

<strong>Imagine this chair is somebody who's interested while I go make a cup of tea.</strong> OK. So the Spanish newspaper El Pais has published an interview with Bardem in which he says that the country's high unemployment rate "suits the government so that labour conditions can be made terrible", adding that it, "wants to pay off the country's debt with the pencils and notebooks of schoolchildren".

<strong>I'm back. Did I miss anything? </strong>Bardem got cross with Spain's government. Hernando got cross back on Twitter.

<strong>Arguing can be a veiled form of flirtation, you know.</strong> In this case, I don't think it is. "You have to be a big villain, and not a film one," Hernando wrote, "to say that high unemployment suits the government."

<strong>Nice. Do you see what he did there?</strong> Yes.

<strong>He made a joke about Bardem being a villain in real life, which is ironic because …</strong> I said I get it.

<strong>Is he a villain in real life? </strong>No. He's a nice lefty actor and married to Pénélope Cruz.

<strong>Blimey! That couple must be about Spain's fourth-largest export!</strong> They do all right. But employment means a lot to Bardem because his mother is also an actor, and she raised him on her own despite spending long periods out of work.

<strong>Is that why he wants to kill Judi Dench?</strong> Again, in real life, I don't think he does.

<strong>Do say: </strong>"We meet again, Mr Bond. I must say I admire your pension and annual-leave entitlements."

<strong>Don't say:</strong> "No Mr Bond! I expect you to do an unpaid work placement!"