Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Javier Bardem

Episode Date: December 5, 2021

Javier Bardem’s road to stardom began in Spain, where he grew up in a family of artists and performers. Since then, he has built a Hollywood resume that balances Oscar-worthy films with blockbusters like Skyfall, Pirates of the Caribbean and Dune. In this week’s Sunday Sitdown, Willie Geist gets together with Bardem to talk about his latest role as Desi Arnaz in the highly-anticipated new movie Being the Ricardos. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got a really good one for you this week, I think, with Academy Award winner Javier Bardem. Javier co-stars with Nicole Kidman in a movie a lot of people are talking about right now called Being the Ricardo's. It's the real life story of Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, who of course co-starred on I Love Lucy. Nicole Kidman, before she even utters a word, striking as Lucille Ball. If you haven't already seen the trailer or the promos, once you see this movie and you see how much she looks

and then sounds like Lucille Ball, it's staggering. And Javier Bardem, a lot of people talking about his performance already as Desi Arnaz in terms of winning some big awards for acting coming up, for both of them, for Kidman and for Bardem. Super interesting guy, very, very nice guy. I never met Javier before. We got together at a little bar in New York City.

and talked about this movie. He grew up in Spain, as you may know, knowing nothing about I Love Lucy, knowing nothing about Desi Arnaz or Lucille Ball. And yet, he was so fascinated by the character of Desi that he felt he had to play it and really pushed to get the part. He's married to Penelope Cruz, the famed actress, as you may know. They've been married for 11 years. They've got two kids. And he talks about his life growing up in Spain, raised by a single mother who was a struggling actress for a while, but still taught Javier the beauty of the art and the beauty of expressing himself. He was a great painter all the way through college. He was a rugby star, and then he found his way into acting. Of course, won the Academy Award for No Country for Old Men, the 2007 movie,

Best Supporting Actor, and was nominated well before that for a film that we get into before Night Falls, which is also a great movie, which is kind of his breakout film back in 2000 when America started to realize how great he was. So I've said enough, you'll hear it all from Javier himself about this really extraordinary movie called Being the Ricardo's that I think you're going to probably run out and see after you hear our conversation. So here it is now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, Oscar winner, Javier Bardem. Javier, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having me. I told you, I just finished watching the film about 20 minutes ago. So it's fresh in my mind.

And there's so much I want to ask you about, but I don't want to give away the movie to all the people are going to go see it. But suffice it to say, it is extraordinary. And there was a lot of anticipation around this movie to begin with. And you and Nicole really deliver on that. I was so fascinated to read, though,

because growing up in Spain, you didn't have I Love Lucy. You had no sense of how big a deal it was here in the United States. And yet you said, this was a role you really wanted. You really pursued it. What was it about Desi that you just had to play? I don't know. I guess it's because I heard a little bit about Desi or Lucy

even though I didn't see the show back in the day. But I knew a little bit of their story a little bit, just a tiny bit. When I heard that there was a project going on, I was curious about who this person was. And then I started to dig in and start to watch the episodes. and I was immediately drawn into him as a person, as a character, as a representation of a foreigner in a foreign country for him, really being strong enough to stand for his own merits,

for his own, yeah, capabilities. And I was very impressed by the humor of him of his and the humor of her and the combination of them both in the show back in the 50s. Every time I was watching an episode, I was very blown away by how modern it is, how, I mean, advanced their sense of humor and their physical comedy, their body languages, the jokes, the rhythm, the energy that they had is something that is hard to see even to the on a new TV show. So I started to read about him.

Even more, I got the book that he wrote, called A Book, which I love, the title itself. And then I saw the landscape of this man, and I was very, very much into trying to play him. So I really pursue the role. And I know that the producers, you know, that it always takes a lot of time to make a movie. And when they were developing the project, they went to other actors.

And some of them had Cuban origins. Some of them were from different countries, from different South American countries, Latin American countries. And for whatever reason, it didn't happen. And they came back to me, and it was like, I'm ready. I'm ready. I think I can do it. I think I know who he is.

and I was very honored to be able to portray him because I felt very much in tune with what he represented for many reasons. Yeah, well, that's an interesting point that you say you understand who he is. Is part of that your own experience coming from Spain to America and learning about the entertainment business here, but really life here as an immigrant? Absolutely. There's a lot of that as well, even though it's different back in the day being a foreigner

was even more, it was even harder, I think, was more of an alien. Like, what is this man doing here? Where is he coming from? And how come does he want to make a room in the film or in the TV industry where there's no reference of that at all? There was a little reference of any foreigner being or taking the place that he took, on in the film and the TV industry. But also, he was married to an American icon.

And that is what made people not really be able to place him or to box him as just as a foreigner trying to make his way in. It was more of a celebrity as well. And a person that was capable of... of bringing such flavors, so much energy, so much wisdom to the show, to the production of the show and to the music he played. I don't know. There's a lot of things of him that I was very attracted to, and some of them will ring a bell

for me in the sense of being a foreigner and knowing what that means. As you say, one of the thing that will strike people as they watch this movie is how smart and savvy Desi and Lucy are about television. They're not just the stars out front reading a script. They're making every decision. The flowers should go here. This scene should be different. All the things. He really

understood entertainment, understood television. Absolutely. And he changed the way we see the shows even today. He invented the three cameras live on the set that will help the audience to watch the show

without any interruption, also being able to cut the cut and make a rhythm out of the comedy. And so when you were watching on TV, it has a rhythm, it has a, yeah, a rhythm. And he brought that, he invented that, he made that up. And along with that, what he brought is his energy. That's why it was very much into trying to convey as an actor. his force. He was a force of nature. He was a man with lots of wisdom, very smart, but more of them, but mostly he was, he was, I don't know, like, like a bull. Like he was unstoppable. Beyond being stubborn, he was a man with a lot of strong ideals, and he will fight for those,

as much as Lucy fought for hers. And both of them together, was something that haven't been seen before. Yeah, and that's what we were talking about before we started, is these were not two-dimensional people on a screen, that they were complicated behind the scenes, and Desi was flawed in his ways, and Lucy was flawed in her own ways. What did you learn, as you read in about them,

about their life behind the camera that fascinated you? I think what I struggled me the most or what I was hanging on stronger when I was playing the character is a deep love that he fell for her and she fell for him. And they were mildly loved with each other even though they knew at some point

that they couldn't make it. And that's why the story is so heartbreaking because it's one of those love stories that you know that they are made for each other at the same time. They can't live with each other. And that's also, also very, I know, that's very hard to watch.

And still, it was a successful marriage. I mean, they stayed together for a long time. They had a beautiful family, and they were amazingly successful in the business. But also, I can imagine what it means to be so exposed as a couple every day for millions of people every week in an episode. because in the I Love Lucy episodes, there's a lot of them in there. And that would have been, I'm sure, very hard to maintain, like, the exposition of their privacy

in some ways in the day where that was not as common as today. Well, I was going to ask you about that. Did you tap into any of your own experience being also in a high-profile couple? You weren't on TV, you're not on TV for 60 million people every week, But also you're both very well-known and people are interested in your lives. Were you able to relate to them at all in that way?

Yeah, I guess I was. It's a different monster because they were, as you said, they were watched by 40 million people every Friday, every Monday. But the thing is, the boundaries that you have to put in order to be private. It's something that I think they didn't do. or they didn't want to do, or I don't know, they weren't incapable of doing back in the day. And that I think affected the relationship

in a big way, for sure. That's my opinion. It's not something that I know for sure, but I can imagine that. Nicole Kidman is extraordinary in this movie. People are going to be stunned when they say you, because in America, we are, even if we weren't old enough to have seen the original show,

it's been on our houses and reruns forever. So they're going to see you and go, my gosh, that's Desi, and they're going to see Nicole It's Lucy. What was it like to act with her, to perform in her, with her in this movie? It's a gift. When you have an amazing actor, actress as a colleague and the amazing dialogues and situations that Mr. Aronsarkin creates, it's gold, it's gold.

At the same time, it's very demanding. It's a different pressure because, you are at the top of everybody's game. You are working with one of the top actresses that you can ever work with and with one of the most amazing screenwriters that have ever lived. So every time you wake up in the morning,

you go, okay, have to be able to belong to that and to earn it. How do you do that? Well, by working as hard as you can and also being as, or trying at least to be as relaxed as you can and become a team. And that's what happened.

When people are doing their best is when they are really becoming a team. And we were a team. We were shooting this movie at the COVID time, like many other shoots, happened in the peak of the COVID in Los Angeles. And we didn't have much time to rehearse or being together or gathered together before shooting. So, in a way, it was very hard because I remember seeing Nicole on a third. Thursday meeting her.

I knew her from many years ago, like once we cross paths in a place and we present each other. But this was the first time that we actually met for real. And that was a Thursday and on Monday we were starting to shoot. Wow. And it's Lucy and Desi. It has to have that chemistry, that union, that linked to each other. and we didn't have time to really create that. But I think that she and I,

we were very aware of the risk we were taking, the pressure that we were under, the huge challenge that we had in front of us, but also very grateful to having the opportunity and the tools of those texts, of those words, those scenes, that director. so we just jump into the abyss. And it's funny because one day Nicole said to me in the promotion,

oh, nice meeting you. Because we didn't even have time to meet us, Nicole and Javier. We were like right on on Lucy and Desi. Like, hey, on Monday we have to be Lucy and Desi. And we were shooting. It was not a longer shoot. It was not a long shoot. So there was no much time to waste, meaning scenes were pretty fast.

not too many takes and there was no time to think about anything you're like you have to jump, play the scene and move on. Does that make it easier in some way to just go do it or do you prefer to have some time to create that chemistry?

If I see it from outside I would say give me some time, give me some time to digest, give me some time to and I need that. I think it helps me to have a better view of where we are. But at the same time

now that I think I don't know if I would have been able to do what I did, whether it's bad or good, it's not for me to say but I just did it because it was like, it was in that speed. In the speed of, don't think about it,

just bring your homework to the set because we did a lot of homework by our own, like watching the episodes, reading the books, trying to achieve how that person look, sound, move, bring the homework, and let's just do it.

Let's play with it. And it was fun, and actually it was fun, because we have time to elaborate that in the scene. They were, as you saw, there are long scenes. There are like five, six, seven pages long scenes with a lot of dialogue. And it's one take, two takes. You go and you jump into it. And that's why we didn't have time to sit down and say,

okay, what do you think about this? No, it's like, hi Lucy, hi, Jesse. Let's go. Do you remember the first time you saw Nicole as Lucille Ball? What was that like? Well, that was on the camera tests for makeup and wardrobe. And I was doing my test with the wardrobe, the hair, the makeup. And then she came in and we were like, there was a silence because they really nailed the look of Lucy Ricardo.

She came as a character that she plays in I Love Lucy. And especially for the American audience, as you were saying before, it's such a big icon. And people really got, well, impressed by it. And I felt, well, here it is, my wife. Hi, this is your husband. Whether you like it or not, this is your husband. You're right.

Because Americans are so familiar with it, They'd tell you if it wasn't right, but let me tell you, you both got it. You both got it. You also had the blessing and some help from Lucille and Desi's family. It means everything. I mean, of course, you want to like,

I mean, we are actors and we do a job that is for the audience to judge and to enjoy, hopefully. And when people like your work, or like the movie that you're in, it's a bless. When they don't like it, it's sad. I think I'm 50. I'm 52 years old now, I can say that it doesn't hurt as much as it used to hurt when they tell you that you really didn't do it right. You tried.

But in this case, when you're playing such an important character that happens to be the father of a person who's alive and very well alive and amazingly talented and beautiful and caring and loving person as Lucy is. and she says, you did right. For me, it was like, and for her, for Nicolina as well. It was not only a relief, but also like, all right, thank you. I mean, I earned the respect of his daughter by portraying her father. That's a lot. That's a lot. I mean, and let me tell you, she won't say it that easily.

I mean, she's great and she's straightforward, very honest. If she doesn't like it, there's no way she's going to say yes because, just because. And when I saw that video and I talked to her, I was like, oh my God, okay. Now I don't care what other people say. She blessed it. I'm good. I'm fine. You know, it's about being respectful and feeling that the respect has gone across.

You only have to satisfy one critic. did it exactly in this case is it exciting for you on the eve of a big release you know you've done something good people are already saying great things about this performance they're talking about awards and everything else is it exciting for you to be on the eve of something that you know is about to sort of explode out into the world and be well received it is because as I said now it's been more than 30 something years of me doing this I've been they push me up to touch the glory, to touch the heavens, and also they drag me on the mud.

I've been in everywhere. I've been all around. So I know what it means. And you have to be very alert and very kind of detached from what, so from that thing up there or from that thing down there is because neither of both are that real. But still, we have ego, we have vanity, and we love to be hugged and applauded and say that we, that they like what we do. So I guess the only thing to really remind yourself is to enjoy the process.

Like it's not easy, knowing that it's not easy at all to make a good movie, to make a good movie, to be part of a good movie. And this, being the Ricardo's, it's a very good movie. So you're already blessed. You're already blessed. It's an honor. So enjoy it. Whether it goes there or it goes there, which I don't think, in this case, enjoy it. enjoy it because it's not easy. We all try to do our best. I don't know any director or actor that doesn't really try hard to make a great movie, the greatest movie. But mostly, most of the times it doesn't happen.

It's hard that all the elements fall together on the same place. You've had a lot more of this than this, I think, in your career. So that's good. That's the good news for you. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Javier Bardem right after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Now more of my conversation with Javier Bardem. It's interesting though, given where you come from, the son of an actress, your mother. She taught you the joy of acting, obviously, but also that it was a struggle, right? It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy to put food on the table and keep the lights on. So what encouraged you to become an actor,

even though you'd seen what it could be like. I don't know what was it. I guess it was in my DNA, but my mom, my mom who passed away months ago, and I adore her, and she's, it's amazing how present she is today, even more than it was before.

And before, let me tell you, it was very present. But now it's in every cell of my body. And everything that I do, she's there. And you want to make her proud. That's the last. legacy that a good person lives behind when she has or he has done something beautiful for the rest of the world as my mom did you as in this case her her son can't stop thinking about would this make my mother proud would this really fit into my

mother's ideals and way of thinking which I so much admire so that's where I am now and I'm sad that she didn't have the chance to see this movie because she would have loved it. It was the time, it was the 50s, it was the time where she fell in love with the Hollywood movies. And I'm sure she saw some of the I Love Lucy episodes. And when I started working as an actor, of course, as you said,

my mom was single, my parents divorced when I was very little, and being an actress with three kids, a single mother back in the 50s in Spain, was very hard. I mean, the way she was treated, it was like horrible for being a woman, single, an actress. She had more down moments than up until she had her moment, but she was a very well-respected actress in theater and movies,

and at the end of the day, she was a whole strong figure in the culture of, in the Spanish culture. And when I start to be an actor, she told me one thing, okay whatever you want to do you want to do this you have to be really really respectful with the craft and with everyone that is involved with this craft because it's sacred i mean whether it goes well or bad it's not in your hands you are dealing with a very nice and subtle nature uh of things that is going to affect you and it may affect others so don't manipulate it don't yeah just be just protect your

and protect the craft and the work because it's sacred. I'm so sorry for your loss. I know it's just this year, and it's beautiful to hear you talk the way. I've heard so many people talk about the presence of a parent. It's even stronger sometimes after. Absolutely. But I think also it sounds like she instilled in you what acting is really about, that it's not about becoming famous and rich.

It's about being good and taking on a role, which it seems like has guided you through all these big steps in your career. I know some of the early roles you've sort of laughed about weren't quite what you were after. sort of the unky macho guy. That's where it starts. When do you feel like your career turned to the place where you are now? Was it before Night Falls when you're nominated for the Oscar?

Was there a moment where you feel like, okay, now I'm doing the kind of work I want to be doing? No, I would say I've been very, very, very blessed and lucky, you know, day one. Because I started to work when I was 19, and I had this movie, I made this movie called Hamon Hamas. which he was the first movie for Penelope Cruz as well.

She was 16 and it was 21. And it was a huge success. And there's nothing that I've done that I'm not proud of. Even the worst performances or movies that I mean, you learn something. You go, yes, that's something that I should not do again. Or that's something that I even, it went bad because I really tried too hard on doing something

that at the end of the day you were pushing, forcing yourself to become something. that you're not. So there's always something to learn. But I would say that when I was, like three, four years later, I started. There were some roles in Spain that they were not supposed to be for me, like a junkie, like a drug-addicted person, or a very light comedy called mouth-to-mouth, that people were surprised that they will offer me this thing. And I knew that there was the chance to really start doing something different. And it went well.

Both of those movies were very well received and it got a lot of attention. And yes, internationally speaking, it was Julian Snobel before Night Falls. For me, it was the movie that really helped me to, first of all, work in English for the first time. And it's funny because I never thought

that that movie was going to be seen by anyone. Why is that? Because it's like, okay, Julian Snobel, which I knew of a little bit. He's an artist. He's a painter. I love Basquiat. His movie,

but this is a very tiny, little independent movie about this Cuban poet. Who's going to see it? So I took it like a rehearsal. But I work hard in a sense that, for example, he was a Cuban and I worked on the accent,

blah, blah, blah. But thinking, okay, how is that thing of working in a foreign language? And then I saw the movie, I liked it a lot, and then the movie, boom. And he's like, what's going on? Hold on, hold on.

This was supposed to be seen. by anyone. But not because of the quality, but it's because of its quality that it was so well received by everyone. And that opened a gate on the international gate for me. Yeah, for sure. So you were nominated for that. And of course, no country for old men, you win for best supporting actor. I'm glad you've changed the haircut. Yeah, me too. Yes, that was a smart move. What did Winnie and Oscar mean to your life and to your career? How did things change?

It changes in the sense that the perception of the people for a little time afterwards is like, wow, there are more offers, not necessarily better offers, but more offers. And people start to treat you like differently in the sense that, oh, wow, you are important. You want an Oscar. It's like that in the short term of things, like a month, two months, three months after that. But then after those times, that everybody's like a little bit shaken by it, everybody that is around you, I mean,

nothing changes. It's just a lottery. You won the lottery. Because you realize that people understand as well that it's impossible to measure the talent of an actor, meaning back in the day when I was nominated for Before Night Falls, I said, well, hold on. It was Tom Hanks for Castaway.

He was Russell Crowe for Gladiator. It was Jeffrey Rush for Quills, and he was Ed Harris for Pollock. So what does anyone have to do with the other? I said, if we all play Gladiator under the direction of Rillia Scott in the same time, in the same amount of time, maybe we could see who did it best. or who did it better,

but even though it will be different, every actor will play it different, that Gladiator. So there's no way you can really measure one performance over the other. And that's something that helps you to take it as what it is, which is, wow, a beautiful accident. Thank you.

Because even the year that I won for No Country Full Men, there were amazing actors there. It was Casey Affleck, it was Hall-Brook, it was Feliceymo Hoffman. And this other actor, whose name I don't remember, a British actor. But for me, for example, Philip Seymour Hoffman was, unfortunately, one of the best actors ever. So it's, for me, was ridiculous to even think that I was a better performer than here.

It is strange. It's so subjective. Now that I think about it, though, you would have been good in Gladiator. As a lion. Stick around to hear more of my conversation with Javier Bardem right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Javier Bardem. Your career is so interesting, I think this year captures it well because being the Ricardo's, the good boss, and Dune, all in a very short period of time, sort of Dune being a excellent film, but of the bigger budget and big box office.

How do you pick the roles that you want to play? Because you have done so well with it through the years. Well, first of all, I'm so lucky that I can pick, right? And if you have that opportunity, you better pick something that you feel is interesting for you, for whatever reason. In Dune, in the case of Dune, I was very drawn into the fact of working with Danny Villenev. And of course, I read the book when I was very young, and then I read, we read, it again when I was cast as Stilgar. And actually, Stilgar is the character that when I read the book,

I was very much intrigued with. I was very drawn into that character. When I read the book, for all the characters in the story, I was like, who's that Stilgar? I like, it smells good. And I was offered Stilgar. So it's like, wow, what a coincidence. And then the good boss is in a Spanish movie,

the third collaboration with Fernando Leone, with Fernando Leone Daranoa, which is a Spanish director I work with, and it's a friend of mine, and it's a great, brilliant screenwriter. And we just broke the record in Spain. We got 20 Goya nominations, which is... I saw. Congratulations. It's like the Oscars in Spain. Right.

We rock the record, and it's because the movie is still on screens, and it's talking to the audience in a way that it's amazing. And we yesterday, yesterday we do a screening here in New York and people were laughing and applauding. It's a great movie. And it's a, it's a story of the abuse of power in a working place through a dark humor, but also with a very pointing social component. And it works great in Spain and out of Spain. And then being the Ricardo was like a. I don't know, like

the gold card is like okay, we're going to do it. Do you want to do it? If I want to do it, yes, when? In a month? In a month? Hold on, I don't sing. I don't play the I mean, I don't play the guitar. I can more or less play the congas. You have a month and a half. Okay. And then you jump in.

That's the process of being the record. It's amazing. It looks like we had the whole time in the world. We didn't. Because of the COVID time and the projects were happening like, okay, we have this window and if we want to make it, it has to be here. And I was shooting, I was in the middle of the shooting of the Little Mermaid,

which is going to open in 23. Right. So it's like, hold on. Okay, let me see if I can do it. And in the time off of the Little Mermaid, I came to Los Angeles and should be in the Ricardo. Wow. So for me, it's been a challenging year in the sense that I've never worked

so much and it's that in this last year and it's sad to say as well I feel kind of a shame to say that because I know that this year has been so hard for so many people people have been unemployed people has lost their jobs their businesses their lives and it's hard to think that because of the COVID and how the things we're putting together I've never worked so much that in this year So that has been very present also in my work. Like, if you're gonna do something, put everything into it.

Because there's a lot of people out there who doesn't have this opportunity and who will never have it. And the world out there is going through a very, very tough time for many, many, many, too many people. So if you have this chance, my God, eat it, eat it. So that's been very, very tough time for many, many, many, too many people. So, that's been very tough time for many, many, many, too many people.

So that's been very, that's been very much present in everything that I've done in this year for sure. You didn't be grateful for you. Oh yes. Oh yes. I feel that way. Every morning. Does fatherhood change the way you look at the jobs you take and how many of them? I know when I had kids, I had a homing beacon suddenly.

I needed to get home as soon as I could. Absolutely. Has being a father changed that for you? Absolutely. And this year also has been challenging because of the COVID restrictions and the flights and me working outside Spain. I've passed more time outside than I ever would have wished, but my kids understood, even though they are small. And I finally managed to really make my times off so I could be with a family. And for me, I've always said it, I have two weeks, two weeks in my, in my body. In my, in my

in my body. Like, after two weeks without seeing my family, I can't. I start to... I know the feeling. He's like, no, I can't. So that was very well respected by everybody that I work with. And thankfully, I was able to be with a family after two weeks and then come back to work. It's incredible how you fit all those puzzle pieces together of all these different projects.

Will you and Penelope act together again anytime soon? Sure. Oh, yeah. She's an amazing actress. We know each other since she was 16, I was 21. She's an amazing actress. She's an amazing colleague. She's very smart, very quick in getting the depth of the roles

and play with it so freely. But at the same time, we have to be protective of what we are, which is most important, which is family and husband and wife. And some of those works, some of those roles, when you start to put it together and play opposite to each other, are challenging, are like short circuits of communications that can be dangerous, I think. And I'm thinking of Loving Pablo, which is a very difficult role,

I can imagine, for a husband and wife to play. Absolutely. In Loving Pablo, there were a couple of scenes where it was, they were very intense. And we felt like we went so deep into each other so because we don't have barriers. We don't have to excuse ourselves. We know that we can go deep into each other.

That when we came out, it's like, wow, what was that? Okay, let's leave that behind because that's something that is not us. And I guess that's where the confusion can come. When you play, whether it's your wife, colleague, brother, sister, or even an actor or an actress that you don't know, get confused. with what is real and what is fiction. Because you're playing with that. You're playing with the idea of creating something that does not exist.

And if you are good enough, you will really feel it as real. And then you step out of it and you go, hold on, what was that? And it takes a while to put it away. Like, okay, no, no, that was created. Thinking of some of those scenes in that movie, it must have been hard later that night to bump into Penelope in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. Sorry about that.

Absolutely. As I said before, I was sent to the sofa to sleep. I don't want to see you and your mustache anymore. It was a hard role to play. And she's amazing in that movie. I think it's one of her best roles, actually. Yeah, she's great in that. Well, congratulations on being the Ricardo's.

It truly is excellent. People are going to love it when they finally get a chance to see it. Thank you. Thank you for the time today. It's a pleasure. Thank you very much. My big thanks again to Javier for a great conversation. you can catch his new movie, Being the Ricardo's,

in theaters on December 10th, and streaming on Amazon Prime video on December 21st. My thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with all of our guests, be sure to click Follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today on your TV set. You still got one of those? That's every weekend on NBC.

I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday, Sit Down Podcast.