Javier Bardem Biography

Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. In 2007, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. He has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los Lunes al sol and Mar adentro. He portrayed the main antagonist Raoul Silva in the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall, for which he received both a BAFTA and a SAG nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Bardem has also won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, five Goya Awards, two European Film Awards, a Prize for Best Actor at Cannes and two Coppa Volpis at Venice for his work. He is the first Spaniard to be nominated for an Oscar (Best Actor, 2000, for Before Night Falls), as well as the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award. He received his third Academy Award nomination, and second Best Actor nomination, for the film Biutiful.

Early life

Bardem was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Pilar Bardem (born María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz), is an actress, and his father, José Carlos Encinas Doussinague (1931"1995), was a businessman involved in environmental work. The two separated shortly after his birth. His mother raised him alone. Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers and actors dating back to the earliest days of Spanish cinema; he is a grandson of actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and nephew of screenwriter and director Juan Antonio Bardem. Both his older brother and sister, Carlos and Mónica, are actors. He also comes from a very political background, in which his uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by Franco for his anti-fascist films. Bardem was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith by his grandmother.

As a child, he spent time at theatres and on film sets. At age six, he made his first film appearance, in Fernando Fernán Gómez's El Pícaro (The Scoundrel). He also played rugby for the underage Spanish National Team. Though he grew up in a family full of actors, Bardem did not see himself going into the family business. Actually, painting was his first love. He went on to study painting for four years at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y Oficios. In need of money he took acting jobs to support his painting, but he also says he was a bad painter and eventually abandoned that career pursuit. In 1989, for the Spanish comedy show El Día Por Delante (The Day Ahead), he had to wear a Superman costume for a comedic sketch, a job that made him question whether he wanted to be an actor at all. Bardem has confessed to having worked as a stripper (for one day only) during his struggling acting career.

Career

Bardem starred in his first major motion picture, The Ages of Lulu, when he was 20. He was propelled to fame, in 1992, by his role as a potential underwear model and would-be bullfighter in Jamón, jamón, which also starred a teenaged Penélope Cruz. Bardem's talent did not go unnoticed in the English-speaking world. In 1997, John Malkovich was the first to approach him, then a 27-year-old, for a role in English, but the Spanish actor turned down the offer because his English was still poor. His first English-speaking role came that same year, in with director Alex de la Iglesia's Perdita Durango, playing a santería-practicing bank robber. After starring in about two dozen films in his native country, he gained international recognition in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls in 2000, portraying Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. He received praise from his idol Al Pacino; the message Pacino left on Bardem's answering machine was something he considers one of the most beautiful gifts he's ever received. For that role, he received an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, the first for a Spaniard. Immediately after, he turned down the role of "Witwer" in Minority Report which eventually went to Colin Farrell. Instead, in 2002, Bardem starred in John Malkovich's directorial debut, The Dancer Upstairs. Malkovich originally had the Spanish actor in mind for the role of the detective's assistant, but the movie took so long to obtain financing it gave Bardem time to learn English and take on the lead role of the detective. "I will always be grateful to him because he really gave me my very first chance to work in English," Bardem has said of Malkovich.

Bardem won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his role in Mar Adentro (2004), released in the United States as The Sea Inside, in which he portrayed the quadriplegic turned assisted suicide activist Ramón Sampedro. He made his Hollywood debut in a brief appearance as a crime lord who summons Tom Cruise's hitman to do the dirty work of dispatching witnesses in the crime drama Collateral. He stars in Milo? Forman's 2006 film Goya's Ghosts opposite Natalie Portman, where he plays a twisted monk during the Spanish Inquisition. In 2007, Bardem acted in two film adaptations: the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, and the adaptation of the Colombian novel Love in the Time of Cholera with Giovanna Mezzogiorno by Gabriel García Márquez. In No Country for Old Men, he played a sociopathic assassin, Anton Chigurh. For that role, he became the first Spanish actor and Spaniard to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also won a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the 2008 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Best Supporting Actor. Bardem's rendition of Chigurh's trademark phrase, "Call it, friendo", was named Top HollyWORDIE of 2007 in the annual survey by the Global Language Monitor. Chigurh was named No. 26 in Entertainment Weekly magazine's 2008 "50 Most Vile Villains in Movie History" list. Bardem's life's work was honored at the 2007 Gotham Awards, produced by Independent Feature Project.

Francis Ford Coppola singled out Bardem as an heir to, and even improvement on, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro, referring to Bardem as ambitious, hungry, unwilling to rest on his laurels and always "excited to do something good." Bardem was attached to play the role of Tetro's mentor in Coppola's film Tetro, but the director felt the character should be female, so he was replaced by fellow Spaniard Carmen Maura. Bardem was originally cast to play fictional filmmaker Guido Contini in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Nine, but dropped out due to exhaustion. The part eventually went to Daniel Day-Lewis. He went on to star alongside Penélope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). In 2010, he was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance in Biutiful directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who specifically wrote the film with Bardem in mind. After being overlooked by the Globes and SAG, Bardem was the unexpected Oscar nominee on 25 January 2011, becoming the first all Spanish-language Best Actor nominee ever. He won his 5th Goya Award, this time for Best Actor in Biutiful, dedicating the win to his wife, Penélope Cruz, and newborn son. Around this same time he was offered the lead role of "Gunslinger" Roland Deschain in Ron Howard's adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels. If he had signed, he would have starred in the TV series as well. Then Eon Productions offered him a role in the James Bond film, Skyfall. With Universal deciding not to go forward with the ultra-ambitious adaptation of the Stephen King 7-novel series, and to end months of speculation, Bardem officially confirmed his role in Skyfall during an interview with Christiane Amanpour for ABC's Nightline.

Bardem received the 2,484th star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 November 2012. The star is located outside the El Capitan Theatre.

With his movie Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony he showed up the suffering of the Sahrawi people in refugee camps. He publicly denounced the UN as unwilling to definitively resolve that human crisis.

Personal life

Bardem is now fluent in English. He is also a stated fan of heavy metal music, with a particular penchant for the band AC/DC. Bardem cannot drive, only getting behind the wheel for film roles, and he consistently refers to himself as a "worker", and not an actor. Bardem was raised a Catholic, but is now an atheist. 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 "right tomorrow, just to screw with the Church" (mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia). In May 2011 Bardem teamed up with The Enough Project's co-founder John Prendergast to raise awareness about conflict minerals in eastern Congo.

In 2007, Bardem began dating Penélope Cruz, his co-star in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem and Cruz have maintained a low public profile. They are famously private and will not talk about their personal lives. The couple married in July 2010 in The Bahamas. They have two children. One son, named Leo Encinas Cruz (in keeping with Spanish naming custom), born in January 22, 2011, and one daughter, named Luna Encinas Cruz, born July 22, 2013, in Madrid.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1990	Las edades de Lulú	Jimmy
1991	High Heels (Tacones lejanos)	Regidor T.V.
1992	Jamón, jamón	Raúl	Cinema Writers Circle Award for Best Actor Sant Jordi Award for Best Spanish Actor Spanish Actors Union Newcomer Award Nominated"?Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Nominated"?Goya Award for Best Actor
1993	Huevos de oro	Benito González	Nominated"?Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Nominated"?Goya Award for Best Actor
1993	El Amante Bilingüe	Shoeshiner
1994	Running Out of Time (Días contados)	Lisardo	Goya Award for Best Supporting Actor San Sebastián International Film Festival Award for Best Actor Spanish Actors Union for Best Supporting Film Performance
1994	'	Detective Cornelio	El detective y la muerte Nominated"?Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor
1995	Boca a boca	Victor Ventura	Cinema Writers Circle Award for Best Actor Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Goya Award for Best Actor Ondas Award for Best Actor Premios ACE for Best Actor
1996	"?xtasis	Rober	Nominated"?Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Nominated"?Spanish Actors Union Award for Lead Film Performance
1997	Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health	Camillero
1997	Airbag	José Alberto
1997	Carne trémula	David	Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Nominated"?European Film Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Goya Award for Best Actor
1997	Perdita Durango	Romeo Dolorosa	Nominated"?Spanish Actors Union Award for Lead Film Performance
1999	Entre las piernas	Javier
1999	Second Skin	Diego	Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor
1999	Washington Wolves (Los Lobos de Washington)	Alberto	Ondas Award for Best Actor
2000	Before Night Falls	Reinaldo Arenas	Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male National Board of Review Award for Best Actor National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor Premios ACE for Best Actor Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Volpi Cup Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Chlotrudis Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Drama Nominated"?New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
2001	Don't Tempt Me	Tony Graco	Uncredited
2002	'	Agustín Rejas	Nominated"?Chlotrudis Award for Best Actor
2002	Mondays in the Sun	Santa	ADIRCAE Award for Best Actor Cinema Writers Circle Award for Best Actor Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Goya Award for Best Actor Gramado Film Festival Golden Kikito Award " Latin Film Competition " Best Actor Premios ACE for Best Actor Spanish Actors Union Award for Lead Film Performance Nominated"?European Film Award for Best Actor Nominated"?European Film Awards Audience Award for Best Actor
2004	Collateral	Felix
2004	The Sea Inside (Mar adentro)	Ramón Sampedro	Bangkok International Film Festival Golden Kinnaree Award for Best Actor Cinema Writers Circle Award for Best Actor European Film Award for Best Actor Fotogramas de Plata Award for Best Movie Actor Goya Award for Best Actor Sant Jordi Award for Best Spanish Actor Spanish Actors Union Award for Lead Film Performance Volpi Cup Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Drama Nominated"?Premios ACE for Best Actor
2006	Goya's Ghosts	Brother Lorenzo
2007	Love in the Time of Cholera	Florentino Ariza
2007	No Country for Old Men	Anton Chigurh	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture Kansas Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Gransito Movie Award for Best Actor in Supporting Role Iowa Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by an Ensemble Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture Nominated"?National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
2008	Vicky Cristina Barcelona	Juan Antonio	Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast Nominated"?Gaudí Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Nominated"?Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male Nominated"?Golden Globe Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2010	Biutiful	Uxbal	Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award (Prix d'interprétation masculine) Cinema Writers Circle Award for Best Actor Fotogramas Award for Best Actor Goya Award for Best Actor Spanish Actors Union for Lead Film Performance Nominated"?Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Ariel Award for Best Actor Nominated"?BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Nominated"?Chlotrudis Award for Best Actor Nominated"?Satellite Award for Best Actor " Motion Picture Drama Nominated"?St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
2010	Eat Pray Love	Felipe
2012	Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony	Himself
2012	Skyfall	Raoul Silva	MTV Movie Award for Best Latino Actor Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor " Motion Picture Nominated"?BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated"?Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Houston Film Critics Society for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?MTV Movie Award for Best Villain Nominated"?MTV Movie Award for Best WTF Moment Nominated"?Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated"?Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated"?Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
2012	To the Wonder	Father Quintana
2013	The Counselor	Reiner	post-production
2013	Alacrán enamorado	Solís	post-production
2014	The Gunman		pre-production

See also

• List of Spanish Academy Award winners and nominees