It’s rare that an actor manages to navigate a film career that includes Hollywood blockbusters, indie pix, international features, and award-winning fare. Yet, Javier Bardem does so with frequency, ease, and great success.
This past year alone, he portrayed Desi Arnaz opposite Nicole Kidman’s Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos for which he received his fourth Academy Award nomination. He’s part of the impressive ensemble of Denis Villeneuve’s massive hit Dune, Oscar nominated for Best Picture. Bardem also serves as the lead in Fernando León de Aranoa’s Spanish satire, The Good Boss, which reaped an historic 20 Goya nominations (Spanish Oscars), winning Best Actor, and was shortlisted for the Best International Feature Oscar.
But his career has always been defined by eclectic and versatile choices.
Bardem’s lineage traces back to the early days of Spanish cinema. His mother, Pilar, was a celebrated actor who brought a 6-year-old Javier to the set of Fernando Fernán Gómez’s El Picaro where he made his screen debut. Yet, he wasn’t bitten with the acting bug until over a decade later. Bit parts, including a small but significant splash in Pedro Almodóvar’s High Heels in 1991 led to his first major lead role opposite another up-and-comer Penélope Cruz in Bigas Luna’s Jamón Jamón, which became an international success. He then appeared in a series of Spanish comedies and action films, including Almodóvar’s Live Flesh.
In 2000, Julian Schnabel cast him as gay Cuban novelist/poet Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls, which was a huge success and brought Bardem his first Academy Award nomination (the first for any Spanish actor), among other accolades. He went on to star in John Malkovich’s The Dancer Upstairs, Alejandro Amenábar’s The Sea Inside, and Milos Forman’s Goya’s Ghosts before securing the seminal role of the evil Anton Chigurh in Joel & Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men, a part that won him the 2007 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor among a slew of other awards.
In 2008, the thesp portrayed painter Juan Antonio, opposite Cruz, in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Cruz won an Oscar for her work), and in 2010, he starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, which would land him his third Oscar nomination.
In the last decade, Bardem has mesmerized in films as varied as Ryan Murphy’s East Pray Love, Sam Mendes’ Skyfall (playing another memorable villain), Ridley Scott’s The Counselor, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, and Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows.
Awards Daily had the pleasure of speaking with Bardem about his extraordinary career.
