Oscars: Javier Bardem’s clean bill of health--other than that hypochondria thing

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We’ve already written at some length about the ways in which Javier Bardem mired himself in an emotional tar pit for the bleak drama “Biutiful.” Bardem likened it to “going into the pool and almost drowning because you can’t find the exit.”

But Bardem did give himself at least one escape hatch. You see, Bardem used to be a hypochondriac. These days, not so much. But you don’t just leave that mindset entirely. So, going into a movie in which he’s to play a man slowly dying of cancer, Bardem knew he’d better take care of one bit of business beforehand to save himself some heavy anxiety.

“Because I knew myself and I knew I was going to stay facing this thing for so long, I checked out my medical things before shooting the movie, just to know I was fine,” Bardem says. “I wanted to be able to play with the idea [of dying]. And you can’t play if it gets in your brain that you’re dying too.”

Here, Bardem affects a look of worry and rattles off what he’d be thinking once he began focusing on the character without having had that check-up.

“ ‘Hold on. Am I really sick? I’m thinking sick. I’m acting sick. Am I really sick? Maybe. I don’t feel so good …”

Needless to say, the tests came back OK.

“Yeah,” Bardem laughs. “Otherwise we would not be having this conversation, would we?”

-- Glenn Whipp