Best Known As: The really, really bad guy in No Country For Old Men
Spanish actor Javier Bardem won an Oscar as best supporting actor for his role in the 2007 drama No Country For Old Men. Raised in a family of actors and filmmakers, Bardem was a child actor who grew up in Madrid and appeared on Spanish television throughout his teen years. In films his breakout role came in 1992's Jamón, jamón (with young Penelope Cruz), and over the next decade he earned praise for his versatility and his strong performances in the films Boca a boca (1995), Carne trémula (1997) and Segunde piel (1999). His portrayal of a tortured Cuban writer in Before Night Falls (2000) brought him an Oscar nomination, the first ever for an actor from Spain. Alternately brawny and sensitive, Bardem works mostly in European films, but his turn as a composed and persistent killer in No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers's film version of the Cormac McCarthy novel, brought him international praise and made him a genuine movie star.
Career Highlights: Before Night Falls, Live Flesh, Jamón Jamón
First Major Screen Credit: Jamón Jamón (1992)
Biography
Possessing a chameleon-like ability to disappear into his characters, which frequently renders him unrecognizable save for his piercing eyes, it's no wonder that Javier Bardem chose to pursue a career as an actor given his family's long history in show business. Always hesitant to play the same type of character twice, the very foundation of Bardem's career is his remarkable ability to so immerse himself in character that audiences never even see the actor. Each role is a transformation that occurs both mentally and physically, and Bardem's hesitance to embrace celebrity culture and make a conscious effort to break into the American market has only served to make him more alluring to stateside filmmakers. Born the youngest member of a family of actors in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain, in 1969, Bardem's first role came at the age of six with the film El Picaro (aka The Scoundrel). Bardem was a shy boy who immediately took to acting, and numerous television roles as well as a stint touring with an independent theater company found the young rugby enthusiast increasingly dedicated to the stage. An interest in painting led Bardem to study at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y Officios, but following a series of odd jobs and the realization that he would never develop the skills to become a great artist, he eventually drifted back into acting.
Moving into the 1990s, Bardem's collaborations with such filmmakers as Pedro Almodóvar (High Heels [1991] and Live Flesh [1997]) and J.J. Bigas Luna (Jamón Jamón [1992] and Huevos de Oro [1994]) found his popularity as a Spanish screen star growing. Goya-nominated for his performances in both Jamón Jamón and Huevos de Oro, Bardem took home the award for his roles in Dias Contados (1994) and Boca a Boca (1995), and it was becoming increasingly clear that a formidable international talent was emerging. Though some may have regarded Bardem as little more than a beefcake sex symbol due to his steamy early roles, a turning point came with the release of 2000's Before Night Falls. A thoughtful look at the life of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, Bardem took over the role after Benicio Del Toro abandoned the it, and his physical transformation stunned audiences worldwide. Arenas was an ultimately tragic figure who eventually committed suicide while living in poverty in New York City, and Bardem prepared tirelessly for the role by changing his diet, immersing himself in Arenas' works, and traveling to Cuba to speak with those who knew the writer personally and to learn the Cuban dialect. In addition to drawing the actor international accolades, the role also found Bardem making history as the first Spanish actor ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Though the offers came flooding in following the success of Before Night Falls, Bardem remained steadfast in his resistance to the Hollywood system. Turning down roles in such blockbusters as The World is Not Enough, it became increasingly obvious that Bardem was indeed sincere in his intentions to remain thoughtful about his career choices. Following his role in actor John Malkovich's directorial debut, The Dancer Upstairs (2002), Bardem's role as an unemployed dockworker in Fernando León de Aranoa's Mondays in the Sun (also 2002) again found the actor drawing praise. Though the film ultimately didn't take home the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, it did net Bardem another Best Lead Actor Goya in addition to being voted Best Film at the awards. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Bardem was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, the son of Carlos Encinas and the actress Pilar
Bardem.[1] Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers
and actors, well known because of their communist ideas, 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.[2] Both his older
brother and his older sister, Carlos and Mónica
Bardem, are 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.[3]
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 does not know how to drive and consistently refers to himself as a "worker" and not an actor.[4] 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 fuck with the church" (mañana
mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia)[5]. Bardem's life's
work was recently honored at the 2007 Gotham Awards, produced by IFP (Independent Feature Project).
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