A lot of actors have previously revealed the unusual jobs they held before they got into the entertainment industry, but Javier Bardem’s might be the most unexpected of them all.
The Academy Award-winning actor stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Wednesday, March 9. While on the program, Bardem talked to host Ellen DeGeneres about Being The Ridcardos, finding out he was nominated for an Oscar alongside his wife Penélope Cruz, and how his daughter helped convince him to join the cast of the upcoming The Little Mermaid live-action remake.
Elsewhere in his interview, the 53-year-old revealed what happened back when he was 20 and decided to surprise a friend by popping out of their birthday cake.
“There is a time when I was 20, believe it or not, And I was stepping out of a cake for a [friend’s fiancée],” he began.
According to actor, they eventually took the party to a local dance club, where he “did [his] routine again on the disco dance floor” and ended up catching the attention of the owner.
“And the owner of the disco said, ‘Will you do that every Friday?,’” Javier recalled. “And I said, ‘Yeah, of course!’ because I was drunk. Then they hired me, and I had to perform the next Friday.”
When the time came for Bardem to show up for his first shift, he called in some...unusual reinforcements.
“I was so nervous, I called my mom and my sister to accompany me to my striptease number,” he told Ellen. “There was nobody — I think there were, like, three people there? And it was very embarrassing, but I did it!”
“So there were three people, and two of them were your mother and your sister,” DeGeneres teased.
“Exactly,” Bardem responded. “The other one was the owner of the place.”
Unsurprisingly, his first day was also his last.
