Editorials > Bardem Drops Out of "Nine"

Some actors live to act. They're perpetually in front of the camera, no matter how good or bad, big or small the role is (see: Samuel L. Jackson). Javier Bardem is not that type of thespian. He's acted in three films in the past year and he is exhausted. The three I'm thinking of are the disastrous "Love in the Time of Cholera," the Oscar-winning "No Country for Old Men," and the forthcoming Woody Allen film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

After those three films he had three promising-sounding films on his plate, but he has dropped all three of them because, according to Variety, "he is exhausted from work and awards season, and will take as long as a year to recharge his batteries." Yeah, all that champagne, travel, and praise can really wear a guy out, I suppose.

Bardem was to have played the protagonist, Guido Contini, in Rob Marshall's "Nine," a musical adaptation of Federico Fellini's "8 1/2." Contini is a film director trying to balance the stress of movie making with his personal relationships with all of the women in his life. Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, and Penelope Cruz are all still in the film (or are in negotiations to be in the film), which was scripted by Michael Tolkin ("The Player").

The other two films Bardem backed out of are Joe Carnahan's "Killing Pablo" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro." The guy wins an Oscar and all of a sudden he wants to work like Daniel Day-Lewis.

-David Morgan