Rodrigo Sorogoyen on Javier Bardem and Shooting ‘The Beloved’ as Full-On Experiment: ‘If This Had Been My First Film, I Wouldn’t Have Taken So Many Risks’

Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beloved” (“El ser querido”), which world premieres in Cannes competition on May 16, begins in a plush Madrid restaurant. The scene lasts 20 minutes.

In it, a world-famous film director, Esteban Martínez (Javier Bardem) reencounters his estranged daughter (Victoria Luengo) to offer her a part in his next film, even though he hasn’t seen her for 13 years.

To ground the scene, Sorogoyen shot it on the first day of the shoot. He also asked Bardem and Luengo not to meet nor talk, let alone rehearse, before shooting.

“In addition to the 10 pages of script they had to perform, they had to talk (or remain silent) for the hour and a half that the encounter would last,” Sorogoyen has said.

“The result is 20 minutes of scenes that, in my opinion, are pure gold. The silences, the doubts, the looks are the most real I have ever filmed,” he adds.