Bardem has been married since 2010 to actress Penélope Cruz, with whom he shares 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.[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]
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.
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.[13] 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 has ever received.[5] For that role, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, the first for a Spaniard. Immediately after, he turned down the role of Danny Witwer in Minority Report which eventually went to Colin Farrell.[21] Instead, in 2002, Bardem starred in Malkovich's directorial debut, The Dancer Upstairs. Malkovich originally had Bardem in mind for the role of the detective's assistant, but the movie's time trying to find financing 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.[14][20]
Bardem's rendition of Chigurh's trademark word, "What business is it of yours where I'm from, friendo?" (in response to the convenience store owner's query, "Y'all gettin' any rain up your way?"),[24] was named Top HollyWORDIE of 2007 in the annual survey by the Global Language Monitor.[25] Chigurh was named No. 26 in Entertainment Weekly magazine's 2008 "50 Most Vile Villains in Movie History" list.[26] Bardem's life's work was honored at the 2007 Gotham Awards, produced by Independent Feature Project. In 2014, Belgian psychiatry professor Samuel Leistedt and 10 associates watched 400 movies over the course of three years and identified 126 psychopathic characters: Bardem's rendition of Chigurh was voted the most realistic psychopath.[27][28][29]
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.[41] With his movie Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony (2012),[42] he demonstrated the suffering of the Sahrawi people in refugee camps.[43] He publicly denounced the UN as unwilling to definitively resolve the human crisis there.[44]
Bardem's native language is Spanish, and he is also fluent in English. He is a fan of heavy metal music, and credits the band AC/DC for helping him learn to speak English, in some respects.[15] He is also a fan of Pearl Jam.[70] Bardem does not drive, only getting behind the wheel for film roles,[13][71] and he refers to himself as a "worker" or "entertainer", not an actor.[71] In 2024, he stated that he still saw himself as "the son of Pilar", adding that he did not want "to be anything else".[67]
Although Bardem was raised as a Catholic, he is now agnostic.[72][73] He expressed his support of gay marriage in Spain. Bardem emphasized that while ego drives acting, it should not interfere with filmmaking.[74] He has later said that while he does not believe strongly in the supernatural, he does not deny it. "We are just this little tiny spot in the whole universe, so of course there must be other things, other people, other creatures, other lives and other dimensions. Sure, I believe in it". In the same interview, Bardem stated that he thinks science and belief "should go together".[75]
Despite the villainous characters he has played throughout his acting career, Bardem has a self-confessed "hatred" of violence which stems from a fight in a nightclub in his early twenties which left him with a broken nose.[76]
Long committed to the plight of the Sahrawi people, Bardem served as spokesperson of the platform 'All with the Sahara', that collected signatures to ask the Spanish government to "lead the search for a peaceful and just solution to a conflict that affects us directly".[77] Bardem produced and narrated the documentary film Sons of the Clouds about life in the Sahrawi refugee camps.[78]
In 2007, Bardem began dating Penélope Cruz, his co-star in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem and Cruz have maintained a low public profile,[80] refusing to discuss their personal lives.[15] The couple married in July 2010 in The Bahamas.[81] They have two children: a son, named Leo Encinas Cruz, born on 23 January 2011,[82] in Los Angeles; and a daughter, named Luna Encinas Cruz, born on 22 July 2013, in Madrid.[83]
In September 2018, at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of Everybody Knows Bardem told Ikon London Magazine about acting together with his spouse: "I find it very easy. In a sense that we play what we are supposed to play and then we go back to our daily life which is way more interesting than any fiction. And it is real."[85]
In November 2019, during the March for Climate in Madrid, Bardem gave a speech on stage where he called both the mayor of Madrid José Luis Martínez-Almeida and the US president Donald Trump "stupid". He later apologized, declaring that "the insult illegitimizes any speech and conversation."[87]
In September 2024, Bardem criticized Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip and the "unconditional support" of Israel by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany,[88] saying that "Israel's extreme right-wing nationalist government is not at all representative of the Jewish community or Israeli society."[89]
^ abcdefTurner, Christopher (9 February 2008). "I always fight directors". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 January 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
^Rodriguez, Rene (17 December 2000). "Javier Bardem Comes Across". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 October 2009. Retrieved 12 October 2007.
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