In an Oscar season filled to the brim with epics (including the original Homeric epic), no film feels quite as immense as the decades-spanning La bola negra, about queer desire and the reverberations of the Spanish Civil War throughout history. Directed by artistic (and former romantic) partners Los Javis, the film tells a trio of stories. In 1932, a young man (Milo Quifes) is barred from a social club due to his sexuality; in 1937, while the war rages, a reluctant soldier and the prisoner he’s guarding find love; and in 2017, an academic (Carlos González) grapples with those two histories.
Much of the film hinges on this middle section, which draws from a secret relationship between poet Federico García Lorca and Rafael Rodríguez Rapún. Rapún, played by Miguel Bernardeau, is a spectral figure in history, a beloved confidant of the poet and a soccer player for a cult favorite team, but ultimately a man about whom little is known. Bernardeau plunged into the hidden world of Lorca and Rapún, revisiting books and historical documents to bring historically subterranean queer worlds to life.
The Valencia-born actor has acting in his blood. His mother, Ana Duato, is a prominent television actor, and he quickly followed in her footsteps, rocketing to fame for his role in the hit Spanish TV show Élite, followed by turns in the sci-fi series 1899 and as the titular character in Amazon Prime’s 2024 television adaptation of Zorro.
La bola negra has only just begun its path to American audiences. The film won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and received a 16-minute standing ovation and a Best Director Award for Los Javis at Cannes. Now, as it hits select U.S. cinemas ahead of its Dec. 2 release on Netflix, we caught up with Bernardeau to discuss the international response, the challenges of historical excavation, and Los Javis’s required reading for the team.
How has it been seeing the film take off?
It’s been crazy, to be honest. I don’t think we expected any of this, but it’s been, in a way, very magical to see the film travel around the world and have audiences that don’t speak our language connect to the story. We feel like it’s a very personal story because it’s also part of our history as a country and as a community. So it’s very beautiful when you see audiences from all around the world connect to something that you feel so personally.
How did you come to acting?
I always wanted to be an actor. When I was a kid, I remember one day my mom took me to the theater to see one of her best friends act. We were in Valencia, my hometown, which is on the east coast of Spain. I have one of those images that you remember as a kid; it’s still in my brain very clearly. I remember her friend was doing this Shakespeare play. I don’t remember which one, but she was wearing this long red dress. And I was sitting in the first row, and I remember the dress would fall down from the stage. It’s the first time I was aware of how much something could move me emotionally. I know her—she’s like my aunt—but now she’s on stage, and she’s a different person. I remember that was the first time I thought, I want to do something like this.
Was your family artistic?
My mom is an actor. She did a TV show in Spain for a long time that is about a family during the dictatorship from Franco. It’s a very Spanish show that’s very instilled in our culture. She just sent me today a picture of me as a very little kid watching her on a TV set. We have very different views of the industry, but she’s been a huge influence and now a huge support also.
How do your views on the industry differ?
It’s a generational thing. We evolve and our tastes are a little different, and it’s just different paths, different careers.
How did you meet Los Javis?
I don’t remember the first time we met. But the first time we spoke about the movie was at the Academy Awards in Spain. And we were backstage, and they told me they had this project that I [already] knew about because it was buzzing in Spain. And Javi Calvo started telling me that they thought that I could play this part in their new movie, and he started listing a lot of books that I should read, which I couldn’t remember the next day. And a week later this audition came. And I did the audition. I didn’t like how I performed in the audition, and I waited for two weeks thinking I lost the opportunity of a lifetime. But then two weeks later, they called me.
You mentioned that they gave you books. What did they give you to read?
They gave me a lot of his plays. And also they gave me Ian Gibson’s Lorca y el mundo gay (“Lorca and the Gay World”), which is a lot more stuff about the Civil War and also letters or poems that Federico would write that were for Rafael. Sonetos del amor oscuro is a series of poems that he wrote for him, and it’s one of the most amazing, incredible depictions of a love that can’t take place because of the time that you’re living in. It’s a masterpiece. That helped me a lot to create the character and to understand the relationship between Federico and Rafael.
I read a lot about Federico. I read La casa de Bernarda Alba. I read Yerma. I read Bodas de sangre. I read a lot of things about him that writers would investigate: his political thoughts, his aspirations, also a little bit of his dark side—not his dark side, but depicting somebody that’s real.
And then we went on to study the few things that we know about Rafael, my character, which was incredible because he was such a special person. A few things say a lot about a person. He was a mining engineer, a soccer player for Atlético de Madrid, which is a very specific team in Spain.
What’s specific about the team?
The team is a very Spanish team that is not about the famous players, but about creating your own stars. So it’s a very niche team.
It’s like a cult classic.
Yes, cult classic. It’s not like Real Madrid, which is full of stars. It’s a very political team also.
Rafael was also very interested in arts. He was very interested in Federico’s theater company. So coming from that very macho world, he was also very interested, I think, in answering questions and conflicts that he had inside of himself. And I guess through art, he would find a way to answer those questions inside. He would travel with Federico and La Barraca—Federico’s theater company—being the chauffeur and the secretary and sometimes playing a little character in the theater company. He was someone that was interested in a very different world that was not his world, trying to come out of a shell in a way, which is, I think, beautiful.
In what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from your character?
I do feel that I’m very curious. I like a lot of very different things. And I guess what I learned with him, playing him, is allowing myself to believe that they’re able to coexist within me. I’m not interested in soccer, but you know I also have a lot of worlds in me that, now, through the character, I accept.
What was the energy like when you were filming?
The filming was very special. It was very intense because the circumstances of the characters are pretty dramatic. It was a lot about finding the tone, but also the rhythm and the tempo in which these characters can discover each other. But also about not boring people, because probably, reality would be a lot slower—looking at each other, realizing that we are not who we think we are in many ways.
The character is not a real fascist. He’s not a soldier that’s going to kill anybody, and I realized that from the first second. But I also realized that I’m going to die because I just woke up in a hospital [on] the other side. I know that when that happens you get interrogated and then killed. So there’s a lot of things going on.
It was a lot of rehearsal with Los Javis. It was a lot of trusting the process, a lot of studying about the war and this character, and then just putting it all away and being in the moment. I’ve played characters, but none in such intense, traumatic circumstances in which you just have to let go in order to get where you want to go emotionally.
Did you know any of the other actors beforehand?
I knew Carlos, but I had never acted with him.
You’re meeting a lot of people. The people behind the camera did an incredible job. I’ve been in shoots where not everybody is at the top of their game. Most of the time the shoots are like that, at least in my country. I’m not complaining about it; it’s just the way it is.
Not in this one. In this one, everybody was at the top of their game and really believing that what they’re doing is important. Whenever I was tired, I would just look at the team and be like, Okay, yeah, I’m here with them. I wanna be here. It was a team full of women and queer people, too, which really impressed me. It was the most serious, silent, professional set I’ve been on.
What’s one character that you’ve always wanted to play?
I used to think, I want to play this character and that character, and now I’ve realized I’m not sure. My truth right now would be that I would want to work with good creators who have a unique vision for a project that I can be a part of.
You want to be in someone’s world.
Exactly. I want to be in someone’s world.
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