Why Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz choose to live in Spain: ‘Among our people’

Javier Bardem enjoys the life he has built in Spain with his wife Penélope Cruz.

In a new Interview magazine interview with Baby reindeer star Richard Gadd, the Oscar winner, 55, said: “My wife and I are recognised” in Spain but “they leave us alone.”

The Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez actor shares two children with Cruz, 50: Leo, 13, and Luna, 11.

“Personally, I have never felt anything but love, gratitude, joy and fun on the streets,” Bardem added of being in Spain. “And that’s why we live here, because we feel like we’re among our people.”

Bardem and Cruz, both born and raised in Spain, met on the set of the 1992 Spanish-language film Jamon Jamon. Bardem said in the Interview discussion that “there was a shift” in his level of fame after that film became a “big thing” upon release.

At the time, he recalled, “I thought, ‘Wow, this feels good. People recognize me. I’m important.’ You start to take advantage of that. You go to the clubs, they give you drinks, the girls come and talk to you, but then you start to see that everything is fake.

The Enchanted The actor said he began to “protect” himself by isolating himself “because you understand that nothing is natural anymore.”

“Nothing is organic anymore. Nothing. Nobody. They don’t behave the way they would with anyone else anymore,” he explained of his fame. “And it’s hard to adapt to that, especially if you’re an actor, because we’re looking for the truth. We are observers – we need to observe behavior, actions, ways of speaking and personality traits, but none of that is true. possible if you are the one being observed. So it is a challenge on a personal and professional level.”

Although they met during the making Jamon Jamon, Bardem and Cruz didn’t become romantic until about fifteen years later when they reconnected to make the 2008 film. Vicky Cristina Barcelona. They made their first official public appearance as a couple at the 2010 Goya Awards and married on July 13, 2010 in the Bahamas.

“We used to have different lives, different goals and purposes. Yet there was something: an energy, a chemistry, a way of relying on each other as human beings,” he recently explained to Men’s magazine from their first spark. “And it stayed that way for so long, even though we didn’t see or speak to each other for years.”

“We realized that the feeling was still alive. Very alive. To our surprise!” he added as they were reunited.

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It also helped, he said Men’s magazinethat the Oscar-winning couple already knew each other beforehand. “We met and knew each other before all the noise, before success and before anyone saw us with different eyes because of who we were now, what we had become.”

“That’s an important foundation, to trust someone because you really know them, and they really know you. You see me, I see you. That’s important,” Bardem said.