Gael Talks About The King

Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mama Tambien) makes his debut in an American feature film with The King, directed and co-written by James Marsh. Bernal stars as Elvis Valderez, a 21-year-old man fresh out of the Navy who packs up his duffle bag and heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, in search of the father he’s never met.

Elvis’ father, Pastor David Sandow (William Hurt), turns his back on his first born son after Elvis tracks him down and introduces himself. Pastor Sandow has his own family now – and a devoted congregation – and doesn’t want Elvis inserting himself into the picture. Urged to leave the city, instead Elvis gets a job and begins an incestuous relationship with David’s 16-year-old daughter, Malerie (Pell James).

A provocative, disturbing film, The King is never what you’d expect.

Tackling Hot Button Topics: “It’s important because films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is.

You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in. At the same time, the issues that are dealt with are incredibly human and they’re about the human condition and society and politics and everything put together, you know, so it’s important.

I think those are the stories that matter. Those are the stories that make us learn from them and that give us a little chance to do an exercise in a huge room filled with strangers watching the movie, [while] we try to be human.”

Gael Garcia Bernal’s Attraction to The King: “Well it was so many things amongst a bunch of things, that it would take a long time to pinpoint any in particular. It has all the elements of a classical tragedy, from incest to the fable of the bastard son who comes back from the sea to regain his lost empire to the makeup of classical tragedy on the backdrop of a modern day context, which is Corpus Christi, Texas.”

Bernal’s Approach to the Character: “First of all, I don’t throw a moral judgment on the characters I’m going to play. There isn’t, ‘Am I going to like him or not?’ I don’t think about the affect of the character on others. I never do. I just try to empathize with the character’s emotional journey and therefore that’s the pathway for me to understand the character and play the role. But just empathizing with the emotional journey, which is something that you can do with even the most gruesome or extreme character. You can always…there’s someway to find it. There’s a lot of ways to empathize with the emotional journey. Of course I’ve never even been close to what this character has lived, but that is the approach for you to be able to live the character and to not ridicule it or look at it from a judgmental distance.”

Bernal also created a detailed backstory in order to figure out where this character’s coming from. “I did a story which isn’t kind of seen in the film, it’s not talked about in the film. But there was a story behind him and a little mythology around him as well. That helps me, in a sense, to complete the character and find the way he would react to things.”

Texas as the Setting for The King: Bernal said filming in Texas helped him get into the character of Elvis. “Very much so because Texas is a country in its own. It’s made up of half Mexico/half United States but completed mixed. I don’t mean to draw a generalization but it is a place, a territory, that’s really made up of all these encounters, you know?

It has its own identity. It has its own directness, as well. Its own lack of hypocrisy because it’s a very honest place and I found it really integrated as well. It was surprising compared to what people might think from outside. It’s actually a very, very truly interesting place to be. I was very happy to be there and to be soaking up this place where all the races and all the languages are integrated. It’s really integrated. There’s not that ghetto feeling that exists in New York and Los Angeles. It’s very, very much integrated and you expect to go to any bar or any café or whatever and there will be people from all over speaking their language and being Texans. You don’t have to change your identity to be from the place you are.”

Getting the Accent Right: Gael Garcia Bernal had to perfect the accent as well as find the right nuances of the language, all while finding the emotional depth of the character. Bernal said, “It was incredibly hard to work for it. There were moments that it just wasn’t going to get there in a sense. Why? Because it’s difficult to do an accent amongst American people, you know? But I guess the only thing I can say is it’s just preparation. I worked hard on it, and for it not to become a burden because that’s the worst thing that it could become. It can make you very self-conscious.”

Over time the accent did come easier. “After a while it becomes a bit, not automatic, but it becomes organic.”

Sticking It Out Over the Years it Took The King to Get Made: “It took a while.

It took four years, more or less. It was like four years ago that I signed on to it,” explained Bernal.

Bernal says he stuck with it because “it was an interesting project to do and also because I had made my commitment and I don’t like backing off. And also because I really wanted to play with it. It took a long time because I was in the middle of The Motorcycle Diaries when they offered it to me. I told them, ‘In the meantime I have to do Bad Education. I did Bad Education and took a five month holiday, six month holiday and then when we did it.”

Choosing Which Films to Do, Which to Pass On: Bernal explained his strategy. “I think of the whole picture in general. I think of the meaning of the film. If I’m interested in telling the story, ‘This story is necessary. This story moves me.’ If a character is interesting. If the character is a challenge to do. ‘Is it complex? What am I going to learn from it? Where am I going to go with it, you know?’ All those questions.

At the end, it’s your intuition or your instinct that tells you to do it. Then the whole project grabs a sense of urgency and it becomes a necessity for you to be in it. That’s how I make a decision. That’s when I decide them. Fortunately that’s when it’s easier to make a decision because that’s when you go for what’s necessary and not the others.”

The size of the budget or whether it’s an independent film or a big studio production doesn’t play a part in Bernal’s decision process. “No, never. It never plays a part. (Laughing) I’m Mexican, you know? I’m a Mexican actor. I’m not used to doing independent or non-independent films. I do films and most of the films that I do are really small because they’re not from the United States and they’re all small.”

The Directors Who’ve Influenced Him: Bernal has The Science of Sleep and Babel hitting theaters in 2006 and will be taking a turn behind the camera when he makes his feature film directorial debut with Déficit. Bernal’s worked with a wealth of critically acclaimed directors over the course of his young career and will carry what he’s picked up from watching them into his own project.

Asked which directors have influenced him the most, Bernal came up with a handful of names. “I think there’s five I can mention. Fortunately the names fill one hand. I hope there’s another hand in the next years (laughing). Alexander Gonzalez Inarritu is a great director. He’s the one I first worked with. He’s amazing and I just finished a film with him as well recently. He taught me a lot along with Alfonso Cuaron who I think is the most incredible director on earth. And then Walter Salles who is, apart from a great craftsman and great storyteller, a really good friend. Also Michel Gondry who is a wonderful, wonderful, very exciting friend to be close to. And Pedro Almodovar.

Source: About.Com