Oscar-nominated Spanish actor Javier Bardem is in the running to play Mexican revolutionary hero Pancho Villa in a forthcoming film for director Tony Scott.

Scott told Mexican newspaper La Jornada that he is considering Bardem for the role of the turn-of-the-century icon in a project he hopes to begin shooting in Mexico in September.

Bardem was nominated for an Oscar last year for his performance as

persecuted Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas in Julian Schnabel's Before Night

Falls. His first release since that film, John Malkovich's directorial debut

The Dancer Upstairs, which premiered this weekend at Sundance.

The actor also recently shot the Spanish-language Mondays In The Sun (Los Lunes Al Sol) in Spain for director Fernando Leon, whose own documentary about the Zapatista march to Mexico City, Caminantes, also screens at Sundance this week.

Bardem's Madrid-based agent Jose Marzili said Bardem has yet to decide what his next project will be.

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