If Javier Bardem is concerned with his public or filmic image, he won’t be getting any negative publicity if he takes on the role of: a middle aged woman gives herself a gift of self awareness as she starts her life over. Paramount Pictures have got themselves an easy top grossing box office winner (the book has sold 5 million copies) in Eat, Pray, Love, and now they may have an Oscar winner in the Spanish actor. This would make it two signings in two weeks for the actor – we are still awaiting confirmation on whether he takes on the villain role for Ollie Stone’s Money Never Speaks (Wall Street 2).
Based on the Elizabeth Gilbert memoir, Gilbert had a husband, a big apartment and a weekend home and was trying to get pregnant, until she realized that wasn’t the life she wanted. After a painful divorce, she set off on a journey of self-discovery around the world. Bardem will play Felipe, the man Gilbert meets and falls in love with on the final leg of a journey. Richard Jenkins plays a Texan whom the heroine befriends at an Indian ashram.
Bardem will next been seen in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Biutiful.