Javier Bardemhas had a long and impressive film career, starring in everything from Spanish films likeJamón jamónandCarne trémulato Hollywood blockbusters likeSkyfallandDune. A highly decorated actor, he has been nominated for four Oscars, winning one for his performance inNo Country for Old Men, along with a BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Storymarks one of his first major television roles, wherein he plays José Menendez — the murdered patriarch of Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch), who he was accused of sexually abusing. Season 2 of theRyan Murphyshow explores various perspectives on the crime, including José and his wife Kitty’s (Chloë Sevigny). Bardem gives a powerful performance, infusing José with an undeniably chilly and menacing nature while giving him surprising depth.
Collider got the chance to speak to Bardem about his character’s surprising final scene, the show’s poignant themes of generational trauma and toxic masculinity, and the unique kind of range he was able to display with this role.
Javier Bardem Breaks Down ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’s Most Powerful Theme
COLLIDER: First of all, congratulations on the show — your performance really blew me away. I actually want to start at the end because I find it sort of fascinating that the last scene of the show focuses so much on this lighter and more hopeful conversation between José and Kitty talking about their future. What kind of impact do you hope that final boat scene has on the audience? What feeling do you hope it leaves them with?
JAVIER BARDEM: I think it’s about the audience — after being taken through so many aspects of this marriage that has to do with pain, trauma, lack of affection, abuse — that we don’t forget that they were human beings.That also,they loved each other and they tried based on the way they were raised, they were educated, and mostly the way they dealt or didn’t — were not able to deal — with their own traumas. So not to justify or excuse any horrible behavior at all but to understand that they were human beings.
I think that’s the bottom line of the show itself —monsters are people; they are not figures that come out of space. Monsters are us as human beings. That we are incapable of dealing with our own pain or trauma or fears or whatever that is, and because of that, we inflict pain to others. And when you see that aspect of the marriage, you go, “Okay. Wow.” It’s not because you have to feel sorry for them, but you understand that. It’s wrong. It’s wrong what they did, and it’s wrong what they did to them.
Absolutely. I found the scenes where José does talk about his own childhood and even calls his family so illuminating, and it really just drives home those themes of this being a vicious cycle and how this is all generational. Can you talk a little bit about exploring José’s past in that way with those particular scenes?
Absolutely. I think that was one of the most powerful things and themes in the show, which ishow much we represent the values of how we were raised as children— how we were treated as children — and how much weight that has not only in our education but in our life and the life of others around us.
José Menendez is from a generation where men were taught what a “real man” should beand behave like, and that will include not to exhibit your emotions, not permit your own feelings to be expressed, to be tough and very hard, driven, and treat women in a certain way and treat other men in a different way. And that’s something that we are carrying ourselves in society even today — wrongly so. So when we are talking about José’s trauma, José’s past history, we’re seeing what he was dealing with and what he was bringing with him in the moment he was abusing his own child, his own children. So it’s a way to understand better what we are as human beings again.
Javier Bardem Found This Aspect of Acting in ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ “Inspiring”
José does have this very large and sort of looming presence, but I almost feel like his quieter moments can be a little bit scarier than when he’s yelling and smashing things a lot of the time. As an actor, how do you weaponize those subtler, quieter moments?
The good and the fun thing about this show was thatwe had to play our characters differently, depending on who was telling the story. José sometimes will be so over the top and so at the top of his lungs kind of thing, and some other [times], we have to be absolutely the opposite — very inner awkward or shame — but still, he would need to be the same person. As an actor, you have to go and put those colors in the same palette, knowing that you cannot go too far or too little. You have to put it on the same aspect and the spectrum of the character so when people see it, they will believe it. That was the most inspiring thing as an actor to play in this show, and I was very grateful to be able to do so.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Storyis available to stream on Netflix.
