Javier Bardem

Born March 1, 1969, into a family of entertainers on the Canary Islands, Javier Bardem established a pattern early in his acting career of playing the hunk in Spanish director Bigas Luna's sexually charged films. Bardem also worked occasionally with acclaimed director Pedro Almodvar, but it took an Oscar-nominated role in Before Night Falls (2000) -- the plaintive biopic about the life of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas -- to propel Bardem into the international spotlight.Bardem chose his subsequent roles carefully, turning in nuanced performances in The Dancer Upstairs (2002, helmed by John Malkovich), director Alejandro Amenbar's The Sea Inside and director Michael Mann's Collateral (both 2004).In 2007, Bardem earned his first Oscar and Golden Globe statuettes and a slew of other accolades playing a stony gun-slinging killer in the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men.

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