LOS ANGELES??I am myself again. I have my pink shirt and tie,? declared a beaming Javier Bardem, who went on a long break after winning the Oscar and Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor honors early this year for his performance in ?No Country for Old Men.?

Claiming exhaustion from promoting the movie and participating in its Oscar campaign, Javier passed on several film projects, including the coveted lead in the much-anticipated screen adaptation of the musical, ?Nine.?

At the press con for his latest film, ?Vicky Cristina Barcelona,?Javier was downright engrossing, especially since the guy spoke, as he always does, in non-generic terms. It?s one reason why he went on a hiatus for several months?he was afraid that he would be repeating himself.

The long vacation benefited him, indeed?he was in an especially good mood during this interview. At one point, when he was at a loss for an English word, he asked: ?How do you say??? Pause. ?Say it in Spanish,? our colleague suggested. ?But I don?t know the word in Spanish,? he admitted with a chuckle.

The man is one of those actors whose larger-than-life screen persona also manifests itself in person?he has a big voice, strong presence, and is unafraid to express grand emotions. Javier also has the Spaniards? tendency to end sentences with the charming ?no?? as in, ?I can?t imagine what it?s like to be loving two people, no?? That was in reference to his character?s ménage a troi with women played by his real-life girlfriend, Penelope Cruz, and Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen?s new cinematic triumph, ?Vicky Cristina Barcelona.?

Thankful

He sounded genuinely humble about bagging trophies for his portrayal of a psychotic killer with a bad haircut in the Coen brothers? masterpiece. The actor compared his win to hitting a lottery jackpot: ?I feel blessed, happy and thankful, but I see it from the outside. It?s like winning the lottery. Somebody said, ?Number eight,? and I happened to have the number eight ticket?because it?s impossible to believe that you?re better than the other one. The performances that were also nominated were?unmeasurable?? He quipped with a grin, ?I invented that word. Look at my English, man, it?s getting better!?

Asked to elaborate on his hiatus, he joked, ?I retired to an island. I?m quitting. I?m starting to plant coconut trees and forget about movie-making, because it?s boring.?

OK, here was his explanation: ?After nine months of promoting the movie, the whole thing shakes you around a little bit. You?re out of your hometown, speaking in a foreign language, and answering the same questions on and on. It?s like, you?re reciting a weird mantra, but it comes to a moment when it goes?poof!?and you don?t know anything anymore.

?So, after that, you have to go back to reality, which is hard. You have to belong to the real world again. That takes time.?

When a journalist pressed him on how exactly did he find himself again during his self-imposed lull, he declared, ?I?m quite boring.? He explained, ?I demand from my friends, grab them by the neck and say, ?You have to stay here and listen to me!? In the end, we always go back to the same need, which is, having somebody understand us. We need to openly share with people, and those people are usually my best friends, because they?ve have been there with me since I was 12 years old.?

He added, ?These are the people whom I brought to the Oscars who watched me win it. They feel the same way toward me even before I won the Oscar. I go, ?I won the Oscar!? They go, ?Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what shall we drink?? (Laughter) They don?t care. You want to go back to them, because after your ego is on display for two hours, they?re bored to death with you. They just want to talk about normal things.?

Javier must have really felt burned out because he gave up the plum singing-dancing lead role of Guido Contini, a film director juggling the many women in his life, in ?Nine,? Rob Marshall?s take on the musical inspired by Fellini?s ?8 ?.? The impressive list of actresses in the cast is almost enough to make you feel like shaking Javier and ask, ?Were you that tired to give up this company of fabulous women?? They include Penelope, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Fergie (aka Stacy Ferguson), Kate Hudson and Marion Cotillard, this year?s Oscar and Golden Globe Best Actress winner.

Javier explained: ??Nine? is an extraordinary project that promises to be of such high quality. Rob Marshall is one of the most talented directors around, and one of the nicest I?ve met. He made me believe that I could do that role. I was willing to do it, but when the moment came when I had to start work, rehearse and prepare, I was totally exhausted! Rob understood perfectly. That was the reason why I dropped out of the project. I think Rob won out in the change because, now, he has one of the most amazing actors in the world?Daniel Day-Lewis.?

Javier also backed out of Francis Ford Coppola?s ?Tetro? and Joe Carnahan?s ?Killing Pablo,? a biopic on Pablo Escobar, the late Colombian drug lord.

Acting colleague

When the subject inevitably turned to Penelope, Javier dodged talking about her on personal terms, but instead described her as an acting colleague. In ?Vicky Cristina Barcelona,? Javier?s Barcelona artist character, Juan Antonio, gets friendly with two American tourists, Scarlett and Rebecca Hall (the Cristina and Vicky, respectively, in the title). Complications arise when his emotionally volatile ex-wife (played by Penelope) shows up.

He said of Penelope: ?She?s an extraordinary actress. When I read the script, I was kind of shocked because Penelope?s character, Maria Elena, is extreme. In her relationship with my character, Juan Antonio, she?s dangerous. I was worried. I said, ?I don?t know if this is going to be realistic?that we are fighting that much.? Our characters almost kill each other even if they say that they?re meant for each other. Penelope did very subtle work for that extreme character.? Javier need not have worried?he and Penelope are the standouts in the film.

The man who grew up in a family of actors shared his predicament about ad-libbing in Spanish, in a film written and directed by Woody Allen: ?You?re asked to improvise?Woody tells you that all the time. You have to be fast because you don?t have too many chances to shoot the scene. You?re working with mostly English-speaking actors, so you really have to be ready?and most of the time, Woody would come to you and take a script page out and go, ?Don?t say this and don?t say that?the rest you say with your own words.? Oh my God, and you hear, ?Action!? It was like, now, it?s a tense moment of performing, where you want to add something, but you realize that you?re never going to hit the note that Woody wanted using his language!

?So, the whole thing is about lying to Woody to make him believe that you?re bringing your own words into it, but actually, you?re saying what he essentially wrote. He doesn?t want to take the credit for anything. He?s always, ?No, no?you do it on your own.? And I?m thinking, ?I?m working with you because I wanted to say your words!??
?So, 90 percent of what was said in Spanish was literally translated from what Woody wrote in English,? he stated. ?I won?t ever dare to change a Woody Allen dialogue. One of the greatest things about working with him is that you do feel like you?re working with a great classic writer. His dialogues are like jewels?they?re like diamonds!?
E-mail rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com, and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.