Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. In a career spanning over three decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and seven Goya Awards, in addition to a Cannes Film Festival Award and two Volpi Cups, and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.

A son of actress Pilar Bardem, he first became known for such Spanish films as Jamón jamón (1992), Boca a boca (1995), Carne trémula (1997), Los lunes al sol (2002), and Mar adentro (2004). He received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls (2000), a criminal with cancer in Biutiful (2010), and Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos (2021). His portrayal of assassin Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers' crime film No Country for Old Men (2007) won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Bardem has also starred in auteur driven films such as Woody Allen's romantic drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Terrence Malick's drama To the Wonder (2013), Darren Aronofsky's horror film mother! (2017), and Asghar Farhadi's mystery drama Everybody Knows (2018). He also acted in blockbuster films such as the James Bond film Skyfall (2012), Eat Pray Love (2010), the swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), the science fiction epic films Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), Disney's live-action remake The Little Mermaid (2023), and F1 (2025). On television, he portrayed José Menendez in the Netflix crime anthology series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024), for which he earned his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

Bardem married actress Penélope Cruz in 2010 and together they have two children. In January 2018, Bardem became the ambassador of Greenpeace for the protection of Antarctica.[1]

Early life Bardem was born on 1 March 1969 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Pilar Bardem (1939–2021), was an actress, and his father, José Carlos Encinas Doussinague (1931–1995), was the son of a cattle rancher from the province of Salamanca.[2] According to Pilar's memoirs, José had a "capricious and violent will," and shot up the front door. He changed jobs more than 10 times, leading to evictions and the children going hungry. The two separated shortly after Javier's birth.[3][4] His mother raised him and his elder siblings, Carlos and Mónica, alone (another sibling died shortly after birth), both of whom have also pursued an acting career. His father died of leukemia in 1995.[2][5]

On his mother’s side, 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 (sister of actresses Mercedes and Guadalupe),[6] and a nephew of screenwriter and director Juan Antonio Bardem.[7] On the latter's side, he is a cousin of filmmaker Miguel Bardem.[8] His uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by the Franco regime for his anti-fascist films.[5] Bardem was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith by his grandmother.[9][10]

As a child, he spent time at theatres and on film sets.[5] In 1974, he made his first television appearance, in Fernando Fernán Gómez's television series El pícaro [es] (The Scoundrel).[11][5][12] He also played rugby for the junior Spanish National Team.[13][14] Though he grew up in a family full of actors, Bardem did not see himself going into the family business, and painting was his preferred medium.[15] He went on to study painting for four years at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y oficios.[13][16] In need of money, he took acting jobs to support his painting but felt he was a bad painter and eventually abandoned it as a career.[15]

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.[17] Bardem also worked as a stripper (for one day) during his struggling acting career.[18]

Career 1990–1999: Early roles Bardem came to notice in a small role in his first major motion picture, The Ages of Lulu, when he was 21, in which he appeared along with his mother, Pilar Bardem. He also appeared in minor roles in Amo tu cama rica and High Heels.[19] Bigas Luna, the director of Lulu, was sufficiently impressed to give him the leading male role in his next film, Jamón Jamón in 1992, in which Bardem played a would-be underwear model and bullfighter. The film, which also starred his eventual wife Penélope Cruz, was a major international success.[13] Bardem featured in Sancho Gracia's Huidos,[19] and starred in Bigas Luna's next film Golden Balls (1993).

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.[14][20] His first English-speaking role came that same year, in with director Álex de la Iglesia's Perdita Durango, playing a santería-practicing bank robber.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javier_Bardem