EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Bardem & MacDonald on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Sorry to ask this first, but What was it like working with the Coen brothers? (Javier Bardem in Blue... Kelly MacDonald in Red) JB: When you are with them it's like talking to one man only. They always agree. They always agree, so it's boring! No, but don't put that on the papers, right. It's good. It's great, they're fun. They're very normal, aren't they?KM: They are very normal. It's weird. If me and my brother had to work together it'd be... ooh . Joel and Ethan have a lot of respect for each other and they have the same taste as each other in films. After about five minutes you don't even notice there's two of them. Javier, you usually do extensive work constructing a back story for you chracters. Did you find that hard with someone like Chigurh? JB: In the book he just appears from nowhere, he's mysterious. It just didn't make sense to ask when Chigurh was born, what his mum was like, did he really drink milk. So I spoke to the Coens and decided that to just show what he represents. So he was more like a machine? JB: Not really a machine. He is human, and that is scarier. You look pretty menacing in the poster... JB: When they sent that to me I thought it was joke! I hate my nose and they know that! In the film it's your hair that's really eye-catching. How did you cope with that? JB: People usually ask me if it is a wig, but it really was my hair! I was consigned for three months to have that haircut! It was funny to see someone so weird and wonderful with that feminine haircut, but it worked pretty good for the character. On set I started to wear a hairnet but eventually they just kept telling me 'take that thing off'!' And Kelly, what was your preparation for Carla like? KM: I'm not as hard working as Javier. I usually just do what it say! I'm too busy worrying about what is in front of me to think about what she was like when she was five! You did have to really change your accent though. How did the Coen brothers react to you when you came to read for the part? KM: I was in New York and my agent said it would be a good idea. I know Joel and Ethan and were trying to cast as close to the area as possible, basically: Texas, apart from the Chigurh character. So, I'm really not that close, geographically. But I jumped through a few hoops, went on tape for the casting director and she said I should met Joel and Ethan. I went to meet Joel and Ethan, and I was just chatting to them before I started reading and they were friendly, but I could see that they were just sort of... they weren't shruggling, but you know, I could sense it. And then I read the first scene and it all changed! It must have been nice when Tommy Lee Jones, who comes from the area, complimented your accent? KM: Yeah, he was the third hoop. It was Ellen Chenoweth, Joel and Ehtan and then I had to get past Tommy. I genuinely was worried about what he would think because he's a Texas man and it would have been really hard to work with him knowing that he didn't really think I was doing that great a job. But he was very vocal about it, which I was really grateful for.JB: I have to say that they were really very right in the way that they cast us. Everything went wrong when Josh Brolin came into the picture. Until that moment, they were right choices. KM: You're really missing out on something. There's a real love story between Josh and Javier and they're very funny together. Javier, obviously it's a bit different for you: is it getting easier for you to act in English? JB: Well, its getting easier but it's never going to be the same as it is to perform in Spanish. It's impossible. But I'm more comfortable, even though it's difficult to relax in a foreign language. It's difficult, so you have to do a lot of work. You try to be truthful when you perform, but at the same time you are working on the lines word by word in a way that is very static. Because you know if you want to be understood you have to say it that way. It's not natural.KM:Your English is better than mine.JB: You did an accent, I did a whole language. Another major part of the film is its landscape which obviously informs a lot of the characters' actions, did it affect you while you were out there? KM:It's just like nowhere else. It's like landing on a different planet and you find. When the plane landed when I got there it was all red, and then by the time I left it was green. It was really peculiar. I can now understand why that's where all the sightings of UFOs and things are. And all those mysterious air baes. It's a very enigmatic place.JB: Yeah, I felt kind of isolated. Because, as you said, you go there for one day, you kill some people. You go to sleep and then you have like six days free. Where it's hugely wide open and you feel totally unlocked and you have that haircut! That isolation worked for my character, but really against myself. Thanks to Mr Brolin, who was always knocking on my door, I didn't take it too much into me. And also had a lot of fun. Kelly, we heard you misinterpreted the film when you first heard about it, is that right? KM: I thought the script was quite funny. It was only when I saw the film that I thought 'oh, it's quite dark. But the book has a similar sense of humour to Joel and Ethan and I think they brought that out.I Although we understand Javier had a problem with the amount of violence. Was that the case? JB: I don't particularly like violence in movies, unless it is there for a reason. It's not that i'm a sensitive guy, I just go there and think 'what's it for?'Since I was unfamiliar with Cormac McCarthy I was dubious, but I read the book and knew it transcends violence in order to bring violence to the table and to talk about it. There is a difference between a violent movie and a movie about violence.KM: I think it's saying how quick it is. Filmic violence is usually drawn out and glorified. But it isn't. I just love the way how in this film, they kill a character and you don't even see it happening. And it's sudden and it's kind of true to life. I don't know about the bigger picture... It's just saying money isn't everything. No Country for Old Men is out on Friday in the U.K.