Javier Bardem is no stranger to edgy roles and now the Academy Award-winning actor is starring in one of this year's most controversial TV series – as José Menendez, who, alongside his wife Kitty (played by Chloë Sevigny), was murdered by the couple's two sons at their home in Beverly Hills.
© GettyThe dark story made headlines in the US from 1989 to 1996, when, following lengthy and lurid courtroom revelations, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were imprisoned for life.
Although the prosecution argued that they were merely seeking to inherit their parents' wealth, the siblings claimed that their actions stemmed from fear following a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at their parents' hands.
In Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan dive into a case that gripped the world, paving the way for audiences' growing appetite for true crime.
"What I tried to portray in José was a commanding man who really thinks he's right all the time and who has to be obeyed," says Javier, 55. "That's very common behaviour from men back in the day. We're talking about the 1960s, '70s, '80s,'90s and, unfortunately, even today.
"That brings a toxic masculinity into the education of kids and into families, and it has consequences.
"But at the same time, he's not aware of that. He doesn't see it as a problem because that's the way he was raised. I would say it was a way to hide his fear and insecurity," the star says.
Now, the compelling show has prompted a review of the case.
Without Javier's powerful performance, the brothers could appear to be entitled brats looking for an excuse to justify their crime.
"It's a delicate issue, and I had the time to sit down with Ryan [Murphy] to speak about it," Javier says.
© Getty"He was super-generous and offered me all the research he did for so many years. So, what I did was take a leap of trust and work around the material, which is based on the roots of José's pain.
"I also looked at the way he was educated, in the days when a man was a man – and the wrong assumptions about what being a man meant in those days.
"Toxic masculinity, as we call it today, is something that can cause lots of pain around a person who behaves that way."
© NetflixDespite the sensitive nature of his latest role, Javier treated it no differently to any other. "In the case of José Menendez, it was important for me to understand the way he was incapable of dealing with his own pain and how much suffering that creates.
"Now, we live in a time when we can talk openly about it. We can talk about abuse and mental health; we can talk about machismo and things that, 30 years ago, we weren't allowed to.
"Thank God we are in a different place. Still, we have a lot of work to do."
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