‘Obsession’ Star Inde Navarrette Confirms Meeting With ‘X-Men’ Director Jake Schreier and Would Love to Play Mystique 15 hours ago ‘The Odyssey’: What Academics Are Saying About Christopher Nolan’s Epic 2 weeks ago Why Aren’t There More Imax 70mm Screens for ‘The Odyssey’? ‘It’s Not Practical,’ Company Says 2 weeks ago In 2007, Javier Bardem delivered one of the century’s most chilling performances as Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.” Nearly two decades later, he’s proved once again he could convincingly play a sociopath, reimagining the vengeful murderer Max Cady on Apple TV +’s hit summer series “ Cape Fear .” Cady was previously played by Robert Mitchum in 1962 and Robert De Niro in 1991, but the brilliance of Bardem’s performance lies in the long stretches of perceived stillness, heightening the tension of the cat-and-mouse game he plays with the Bowden family, which star Lily Collias described as “a lot of fun” but “sometimes very jarring.” “We’re playing cat and mouse, and then the cameras turn off, and I still feel like a mouse,” Collias told Variety at the “Cape Fear” finale screening in New York. “And he still feels like Tom from ‘Tom and Jerry.’” Related Stories ‘The Odyssey’: All the Ways Christopher Nolan’s Movie Is Different From the Book 'Superhero Fatigue Is Real.
Spider-Man Fatigue Is Not': Tom Holland's 'Brand New Day' Could Score One of the Biggest Opening Weekends Ever Collias plays Natalie Bowden, the daughter of Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom (Patrick Wilson), two lawyers who Bardem’s Cady blames for his incarceration. After 10 episodes of buildup, the series finale depicts an epic battle in which Cady invades the Bowden’s home, placing Anna and Tom on “trial” for colluding against him and threatening their children. Popular on Variety “[Episode] 10 felt almost like a play,” Collias said.
“It was just the family and him in the house, and we were doing the most insane things and laughing so hard off camera. It felt like such a joy that it was actually a beautiful time.” Before filming one violent sequence in which Cady grabs Natalie by the hair, Collias says Bardem politely apologized in advance and made sure she felt comfortable with the physicality. “We would go through such weird circumstances, it’s little things that make me still giggle to this day,” Collias said.
“In Episode 10, there’s one point where he has to grab me by my hair, and before the scene, he’s like, ‘I’m so sorry, my love. Is it OK if I just — I’m going to grab you like that?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ Then we start rolling and I see this thing coming up to me and I’m like, ‘What the fuck?! Well, OK, that’s your job!’” When asked about filming the intense finale scenes, Bardem smirked, explaining how he’s learned to lean into the “play” involved with acting as he’s gotten older.
“For me, it’s more about a game,” Bardem said. “You use your imagination to jump in and step out of it. I respect everybody’s process, as long as those processes respect other people’s processes.
For me, the fun part is to really be part of a group of people that imagine things that don’t exist, and they create it together based on the fact that it’s all a big lie.” ‘Dance Moms’ Parody Musical Adds ‘Titaníque’ Director and Co-Creator Tye Blue as Creative Producer (EXCLUSIVE) ‘A Star Is Born’ Producer Lynette Howell Taylor Re-Elected Academy President Alfonso Ribeiro on Social Media Fueling ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Success and Urging Contestants to Ignore the Trolls: ‘Why Are We So Mean to One Another? Could Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial’ Be This Oscar Season’s ‘The Apprentice’? ‘Reclaim the Flag’ Director Alexis Bittar on Why Some People Were Too ‘Nervous’ to Be in Doc About LGBTQ Community’s Relationship to the American Flag Abbie Cornish Transforms Into Anna Nicole Smith in First Look at ‘Trust Me, I’m a Doctor’ (EXCLUSIVE)
