Javier Bardem Once Jumped Out of Cake in Drag for Daniel Craig
Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Javier Bardem dropped a tantalizing tidbit about how he and his Skyfall costar Daniel Craig rang in their joint birthday that caught our attention.
The two were discussing Bardem’s experience playing Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos, a role that required him to sing. Craig asked Bardem if he had any previous experience singing and Bardem joked, “Well, apart from coming out of birthday cakes dressed like a Bond girl, not much!” The birthday cake moment happened during a joint birthday party — the actors’ birthdays are a day apart (Bardem and Craig were born March 1 and 2, respectively).
Bardem surprised Craig by not only jumping out of the cake in drag but by treating him to a birthday song. “You were in drag,” Craig remembered with a laugh.“I was supposed to be the Bond girl that night, and oh my god, I was!” said Bardem, “I sang ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in my best Marilyn Monroe impersonation as I could do.” The two also discussed shooting the homoerotic interrogation scene from Skyfall, which saw Bardem’s character, Raoul Silva, stroking Bond’s chest and thighs while he’s tied to a chair.
Silva says “You’re trying to remember your training now… well, there’s a first time for everything,” to which Bond responds, “What makes you think this is my first time?”It’s a scene that almost ended up on the cutting room floor according to producer Barbara Broccoli, who, in the Apple TV+ documentary Being James Bond, shared that studio execs thought it would undercut Bonds’s womanizing image.
