Why King Triton From The Little Mermaid Looks So Familiar

Based on Hans Christian Andersen's 19th-century fairytale of the same name, "The Little Mermaid" is an adaptation over 180 years in the making. Of course, modern audiences are well-acquainted with the 1989 animated film that launched Ariel to the upper tier of Disney princesses. Now, like "Mulan," "Aladdin," and "Beauty and the Beast" before it, "The Little Mermaid" is getting the live-action treatment. The adaptation is in the capable hands of Rob Marshall, who is known for directing "Chicago," "Into the Woods," and "Mary Poppins Returns."

Disney debuted "The Little Mermaid" trailer during the 95th Academy Awards broadcast, giving fans an extended look at Halle Bailey's Ariel, Melissa McCarthy's duplicitous Ursula, and a gaggle of sea critter friends, including Flounder and Sebastian. Amid fiery shipwrecks and colorful undersea choreography, the trailer also offered a first look at King Triton, Ariel's overbearing father. Here's why he looks so familiar.

"The Little Mermaid" may be anchored (zing!) by Halle Bailey, but Javier Bardem appears to add an appropriate amount of gravitas to his role as the undersea king. It's an on-screen presence the actor has cultivated over the course of his three-plus-decades career, beginning with dozens of film roles in his native Spain. Already a star in Spain, Bardem's first English-language film was 2000's "Before Night Falls." For his role as the Cuban writer and dissident Reinaldo Arenas, Bardem earned his first Academy Award nomination.

Bardem rose to greater fame stateside with his appearance in Michael Mann's "Collateral" in 2004. The crime thriller follows a hapless taxi driver, Max (Jamie Foxx), who is coerced into driving a hit man, Vincent (Tom Cruise), to his various targets around Los Angeles. As one of the film's minor characters, Bardem's role as drug lord Felix Reyes-Torrena is brief yet impactful. In one of the most white-knuckled scenes, Max must impersonate Vincent in an intense meeting with Felix.

If Javier Bardem leaned into his dark side for "Collateral," he conjured something genuinely terrifying for "No Country for Old Men." Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, the 2007 film from the Coen brothers delves into similar themes as the duo's other projects, namely the confluence (or, in some circumstances, incompatibility) of coincidence and destiny. As the villain Anton Chigurh, Bardem imbues a simple coin flip (and, it should be said, the delivery of the word "friendo") with chilling consequences. The performance earned Bardem an Academy Award.

For the Spanish actor, his casting was a dream come true. "Ever since I saw 'Blood Simple,' I always dreamed of working with them, but it seemed unlikely," Bardem told The Irish Independent. "I mean, they always make these very deeply American movies where there's no obvious role for a foreigner, so when it happened I just couldn't believe it."

Following "No Country for Old Men," Javier Bardem's hot streak continued in earnest, with the actor appearing alongside Penélope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, and Scarlett Johansson in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." He then earned his third Academy Award nomination for Alejandro González Iñárritu's 2010 film "Biutiful."

In 2012, Bardem returned to the world of on-screen villains — and rocked another impeccable hairdo — in "Skyfall." Bardem plays Raoul Silva, a former M16 agent-turned-cyberterrorist with a bleach-blonde mop and an unquenchable vendetta against M (Judi Dench). For as cunning and cool as Silva is, even Bardem was left bumbling and starstruck. "I looked at [Daniel Craig and Judi Dench] and forgot the lines," the actor recalled to The Guardian. "There was a silence and Sam [Mendes] said, 'Cut, what's wrong?' And I said, 'I'm sorry, man, I just realized I'm in a James Bond movie and M and James Bond are looking at me.'"

With a Bond flick under his belt, Bardem continued to take on the odd big-budget project. One such film was 2017's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales," the fifth entry in the swashbuckling series. Bardem plays Captain Armando Salazar, yet another villain driven by revenge, this time aimed at Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) for turning him into a ghost.

According to Bardem, it was in part his wife Penélope Cruz's involvement in the fourth installment that convinced him of the franchise's production caliber. "I was there on the set, on 'Pirates 4,' and I saw how good everything worked out," Bardem told Collider. "I saw the production quality and the detail. In this movie, I would walk around my boat and I would lift a plate, and there would be hand-carved things in the wood that the art department did, that nobody would ever see, but it was there. You have to respect that."

2017 was a busy year for Bardem, who didn't limit himself to huge studio films. He also appeared in "Loving Pablo" as Pablo Escobar and Darren Aronofsky's psychological horror film "Mother!"

When the long-gestating adaptation of "Dune" was released in 2021, it boasted an impressive ensemble cast on par with the film's ambitious scope and scale. Led by Timothée Chalamet, Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic also features Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, and Charlotte Rampling. Javier Bardem plays Stilgar, the leader of the Fremen tribe on the desert planet Arrakis. 2021 was also a year of more intimate projects for Bardem, and the actor earned an Academy Award nomination for his role as Desi Arnaz in the biopic "Being the Ricardos."

To Bardem's delight, he'll be returning to reprise the role of Stilgar in "Dune: Part Two." "The first thing that I got was a message from Josh Brolin, [a] text message saying, 'See you in the desert,'" the actor told The Playlist. "Of course, I can't wait to go back to that." His nautical turn as King Triton will surely be a welcomed reprieve from back-to-back desert shoots.