Director Florian Zeller Says Casting a Real Couple Brought ‘Bunker’ Closer to Truth

September 12, 2026 / Sophie Clearwater /

Penélope Cruz, Florian Zeller and Javier Bardem at the “Bunker” premiere on September 8. Photo by Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images

One of the sexiest married couples in acting brought cinematic catnip to the Venice Film Festival: a movie about marital discord. White-hot Spanish stars Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz accompanied writer-director Florian Zeller to the world premiere of their domestic drama Bunker, bringing along co-stars Stephen Graham, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Paul Dano. And when the movie ended, the reception was rapturous, with a 15-minute standing ovation in the marble-sheathed Sala Grande that made Cruz burst into tears before kissing her beaming husband.

“I adore them,” said Zeller hours earlier at the film’s press conference. “They are among the greatest actors working today.” Inspired in part by Eyes Wide Shut, Zeller was drawn to the idea of casting real-life spouses—specifically Bardem and Cruz—for his look at a relationship under severe stress. “I thought it would be a unique way to capture something special as a real couple,” he said. “To give layers to all the scenes of this film, to blur the line, of course, between reality and fiction, but to try to approach something that I’m interested in, which is the burning authenticity of the truth. And to do that for actors, you have to be very bold. You have to be very fearless and ambitious. And that’s why they are such great artists.”

Cruz and Bardem have worked together before in a handful of films (most famously their sultry breakout roles in 1992’s Jamón, Jamón), but never as a married couple. And, especially at this point in the actors’ Oscar-winning careers, producers don’t necessarily want them speaking Spanish. “Even if you look back 10 or 15 years ago, it was always so challenging to get financiers to accept something like that,” said Cruz. “We’ve had situations where we had to speak English in movies where we were playing Colombians. And then you get to do one little scene in Spanish with a Colombian accent, but the rest is in English.”

Bunker, which is set in London but has extended scenes of Cruz and Bardem speaking Spanish, came as a welcome opportunity. “Finally!” she added. “It’s such a relief because it’s closer to the truth. That’s what we all want, no?

Zeller created the perfect project for them to work together by adapting the 2009 Argentine film The Man Next Door, about a working-class man who feuds with his rich neighbor after knocking a hole into their shared dividing wall with a sledgehammer to make way for a window. The filmmaker expanded the story’s socio-political canvas when he turned the affluent resident into the married couple Miguel (Bardem) and Sofia (Cruz) and then added their professional tensions to the film’s emotional core.

Miguel, a prestigious Spanish architect who relocated his family to London just a few years before, has a wildly lucrative though morally dubious opportunity to build a sprawling, state-of-the-art survivalist bunker in Hawaii for a Silicon Valley mogul named Andrew (Paul Dano, channeling his inner Mark Zuckerberg). Sofia, who compromised her successful publishing career in Madrid to support Miguel’s dreams, feels trapped in a dead-end job as a senior editor overseeing translations at a British imprint.

More urgently, she’s repulsed by the idea of a social-media tech billionaire who fortifies himself from the world by digging a hole to escape what Andrew even suggests could be “a full-scale collapse of the system we live in.” (One which he helped create, incidentally.) “I don’t want my head on a spike,” Andrew tells Miguel with no sense of irony.

“His wife is here to really question, you know, is it really what you want to be part of?” said Zeller. “It reflects what we could all try to achieve, which is to be very aware of the meanings of our decisions and the meanings of our actions.”

“I don’t think it would make sense to say, ‘I don’t talk about politics,’” said Cruz in response to the idea of artists being apolitical. “This involves so many aspects of where the world is right now, things that affect all of us—future generations, our children and their children.”

Bardem agreed. “This movie speaks about how much we are willing to see and welcome others. Or, based on our prejudice and fears, how much are we going to isolate ourselves and criminalize and dehumanize others? It’s a good question. And it’s been beautifully asked by Florian.”

More salaciously: was Zeller able to reveal the inner dynamics of Bardem and Cruz’s relationship? In one bravura extended scene featuring only the two actors—raw, vulnerable, defiant, wounded—Miguel and Sofia have an intensely honest conversation about their 17-year marriage. It’s almost impossible not to see them tapping into their genuine experiences together.

“We are very good at really creating fiction and reality,” Bardem said diplomatically with a twinkle in his eye. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t survive doing this job.”

“Do we argue?” he said. “No. No, never.” And then he smiled. “No, never…”

“I’ve known you for more than 30 years!” said Cruz. “Imagine if we’ve never had an argument.” She then explained that their trust in Zeller allayed any concerns about exposing too much of themselves. “We knew that we were going to be protected in terms of having somebody inviting you, not to bring anything from your personal life, but to bring everything you have experienced in your life. You feel safer, because you know there are going to be days that are more tricky with some of the big arguments.”

“He was a real protection for us in that way,” she added. “And it was really beautiful to have that.”