Penélope Cruz On Working With Javier Bardem In Florian Zeller’s “Bunker”: “We Knew Florian Was Never Going To Manipulate Anything From Our Real Relationship” — Contenders London

Florian Zeller and Penélope Cruz stepped into Deadline’s Contenders event in London where the duo discussed their upcoming psychological thriller, Bunker. The film, which Zeller wrote, produced and directed, sees Cruz star as the wife of her real-life husband Javier Bardem as their characters face emotional and moral challenges in an increasingly uncertain world. Bardem plays Miguel, a successful London architect, who considers a prestigious offer to build a survivalist bunker for a tech billionaire. The project causes his wife Sofia (Cruz) to question their relationship of 17 years as they are drawn deeper into a life of extreme wealth, paranoia and fear. The intrusion of an unsettling neighbor becomes another source of anxiety. Zeller says that it was “a dream” of his to work with Bardem and Cruz. “I was interested in working with them together because I thought it would be an opportunity to explore something unique as a couple in life and also, to question what it is to be together and to explore love, to explore forgiveness in a long-term relationship through these extraordinary talents.” Watch on Deadline Cruz admitted that making the step to play a fictional couple in a feature film was a big one for her and Bardem, as the pair had made the decision “not to work together very often.” “We thought about it a little bit because, of course, the temptation was huge because we both love Florian,” said Cruz. “We love his work so much, but we always said we were not going to work together very often because it is a way to protect the relationship. I think it would be too risky to work together to often. But when we read it, and when we spoke to him, we looked at each other and really didn’t see any reason to say no. We both wanted to do it, and we knew that Florian was never going to manipulate anything or try to force anything from our real relationship into the movie.” Cruz added that a week before their “big fight” scene in the film, which was shot across three days, “things started to happen and I started to feel weird.” “Of course, it was because that scene was coming,” she said. “But I always said to myself, ‘that’s not possible, it cannot be because that scene is coming.’ We are old enough to not let that affect us, but it did affect us.” Cruz added: “But it’s just a natural process to find some truth.” Zeller noted that the fight scene, which is an almost 11-minute scene, is somewhat “the core of the film.” “It encapsulates thematically and emotionally everything the film is about. For a long period of time during the film, Penelope’s character is going through a crisis, but you don’t really know exactly what it is. Something is missing but she cannot exactly know what it is until that moment comes when she starts to become very vocal about it. So that’s a moment that is very key emotionally in the film.” Additional cast in Bunker include Stephen Graham, Paul Dano and Patrick Schwarzenegger. The French-Spanish co-production is produced by Federica Sainte-Rose and Zeller for Blue Morning Pictures, Fernando Bovaria and Simon de Santiago of MOD Producciones and Alice Dawson. Pathé’s Ardavan Safaee and Mediawan’s Pierre-Antoine Capton serve as co-producers. Check back on Monday for the panel video.