The imminent premiere of the real-image remake ‘The Little Mermaid’ will help the public meet Ariel again in a film in which she also participates Javier Bardem Giving life to King Triton. At Espinof we have had the opportunity to participate in a meeting with the Spanish actor in which he has spoken to us about different aspects of the film and the current state of his career, acknowledging that “Now I have opened my hand much more to the children’s theme“
His motivation for making the film and the deleted song
Bardem has had no problem admitting that he wrote to the director Rob Marshall to sign him for the film, something that is partly due to his status as a father, since “It is important that the children know that dad is working, that you have to work. That is why it is also important that they make films so that they can see the finished workOf course, he wanted to make it clear that his points in common with Tritón are quite small:
That I have a daughter, and that’s it. Well, I imagine that sometimes the fear, the insecurity and the expectation of imagine my children becoming people that they are not. The fear of any father and father.
The Oscar winner for his unforgettable performance in ‘No Country for Old Men’ also revealed that on set “the worst of the days was when I rolled over the water in Sardinia. I had to be in the water, they gave me a rope and when they pulled I had to count I don’t know if it was 30 seconds, and I always drowned. I had a terrible time and it is the one that was repeated the most, because they told me “That you are Triton!“and he commented the following about the song he had in ‘The Little Mermaid’ and that was finally from the final cut:
My song in the film is called ‘Impossible Child’, original by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, a beautiful rock opera. The first one that I sing in a movie, because I started rehearsing in 2019, I record in 2020, pandemic, in 2021 I do ‘Being the Ricardos’ and ‘Lilo, my friend the crocodile’. It has not been seen because in the second part of the song he talks about how he realizes that it may be the reason why his daughter wants to leave. That vulnerability there was a spoiler for the end of the film, it would have taken away its value. It will be in the extras.
His co-stars
In the film, Bardem shares scenes mainly with two characters. Regarding Halley Bailey, he highlighted that the actress has a special aura and that “When he arrived at rehearsals he was 18 years old and had a freshness and innocence that I was blown away. It was inexhaustible, it was never repeated for her“, also confessing that “when Halle Bailey warmed up her voice to sing, I would start crying. she excited me“. Much more curious was everything related to the subject of Sebastian:
It had three types of crabs. One is the one that comes out, I wanted to take it home and they wouldn’t let me. Two, the puppet crab, which was a man with a puppet who went behind me dressed in blue so that he would not be seen and who made me laugh a lot. And three, which was my favorite, the eyes of the crab, a blue ball with two eyes. That’s when I died laughing, I said that I couldn’t work like that, that I am a serious actor.
Of course, Bardem was very grateful that daveed diggs (‘Hamilton’), the actor who lends his voice to Sebastian, was always on set, because “that was cool because then you interacted“. Lastly, when the original ‘The Little Mermaid’ hit theaters, Bardem was already of legal age, so the Disney animated film that marked him as a child was ‘Dumbo’: “I kill myself. I remember the mother, is that Disney movies can be very heavy“.
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