Biography
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (born March 1, 1969) is a two-time
Academy Award-nominated, and
Golden Globe- and
SAG Award- winning,
Spanish actor. He has made over two dozen films in his native country, but became an international star with his starring role in the critically acclaimed
Before Night Falls. With this role, he became the first Spanish actor to receive an
Academy Award nomination. Bardem has won a
Golden Globe and a
Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in
No Country For Old Men. He became the first Spanish actor to win the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Early life
Bardem was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, the son of Carlos Encinas and the actress
Pilar Bardem. Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers and actors who have been working since the earliest days of Spanish cinema; he is the grandson of actors
Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and the nephew of screenwriter and director
Juan Antonio Bardem. Both his older brother and older sister,
Carlos and
Mónica Bardem, are also actors. His film debut was at the age of six in the film El Pícaro (The Scoundrel) and he appeared in several television series before turning to painting and, eventually, athletics. Before acting professionally, Bardem was a member of the
Spanish national rugby team.
Career
Bardem starred in his first major motion picture, The Ages of Lulu, when he was 20. In 1992, he made his first international hit with
Jamón, Jamón, which also starred
Penélope Cruz. After starring in roughly two dozen films in his native country, he would eventually land his international breakthrough performance role in
Julian Schnabel's
Before Night Falls in 2000, as
Cuban poet
Reinaldo Arenas. He was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actor for the role, the first time for a Spaniard. This also marked Bardem's first
English-language speaking role. In 2002 he starred in
John Malkovich's directorial debut,
The Dancer Upstairs.
Bardem won the Best Actor at the
Venice Film Festival for his role in 2004's
The Sea Inside, in which he portrayed
assisted-suicide activist
Ramón Sampedro. That year he also made a brief appearance as a vicious crime lord who summons
Tom Cruise's hitman to do the dirty work of dispatching witnesses, in
Michael Mann's crime drama
Collateral, which also starred
Jamie Foxx. In the
Coen Brothers' 2007 film
No Country for Old Men, based upon the novel of the same name, he plays chilling sociopathic hitman Anton Chigurh. For that role, he won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Supporting Actor and also won the Critic's Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor. He is currently in the running for an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also appears in the
2007 film adaptation of the classic Latin American novel
Love in the Time of Cholera.
He will star in
Woody Allen's film
Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem is currently in talks to play fictional filmmaker Guido Contini in the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical
Nine. The part of Guido Contini had previously been played by
Raul Julia in the original 1982 production and more recently by
Antonio Banderas in the
Tony Award-winning 2003 revival also starring
Mary Stuart Masterson,
Jane Krakowski,
Chita Rivera, and
Laura Benanti. The film is to be directed by DGA winner Rob Marshall and is scheduled for release in 2008.
Personal lifeBardem does not know how to drive and consistently refers to himself as a "worker" and not an actor.Following the legalization of
same-sex marriage in Spain in
2005, Bardem incited controversy when he stated that if he were gay, he would "get married tomorrow, just to get the church pissed off" (mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia). Bardem was recently honored at the 2007 Gotham Awards in New York City for his life's work. The Gotham Awards' focus is independent film and is produced by IFP, the Independent Feature Project. Bardem is currently in a relationship with
Jamón, Jamón co-star
Penélope Cruz. In and interview for Time-Out he stated that he lost his virginity at the age of 19.