Javier Bardem (Right) as Paco

Javier Bardem (Paco), Spain’s most internationally acclaimed actor, has captivated audiences worldwide with his diverse performances. Bardem stars opposite his wife, Penélope Cruz, in Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows, which opened the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. 

Also in 2018, Bardem and Cruz starred in Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s biopic, Loving Pablo, which tells the true story of a dramatic love affair between notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar and Colombian journalist Virginia Vallejo. In 2019, Bardem can be seen in Amazon’s four-part mini-series, Cortes, directed by Steven Spielberg.  

Bardem recently starred in Darren Aronofsky’s mother! opposite Jennifer Lawrence as well as the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean blockbuster franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. In 2012, Bardem took audiences by storm in one of the most touted installments of the James Bond franchise, Skyfall, as the villain, Raoul Silva, opposite Daniel Craig, Dame Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, and Berenice Marlohe. He received critical acclaim for his role, in addition to being nominated in the supporting actor category for both a Critics Choice Movie Award and a Screen Actors Guild® Award. The same year, Bardem co-produced and starred in Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony, a film documenting how the colonization of the Western Sahara has left nearly 200,000 people living in refugee camps.  

Bardem was awarded the Best Actor prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival for his performance in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Biutiful, a role which also earned him his third Academy Award® nomination. In October 2011, Bardem and his co-producer Alvaro Longoria, the film’s director, addressed the United Nations General Assembly’s decolonization committee, urging the delegates to end human rights abuses in the region. The film premiered at the 62nd annual Berlin International Film Festival and has been acquired by Canal Plus in Bardem’s native Spain, and was released by GoDigital via iTunes in the U.S. 

In 2008, Bardem received the Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor for his chilling portrayal of sociopath Anton Chigurh in Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men. The performance garnered a Golden Globe® Award, a Screen Actors Guild® Award, a BAFTA, and countless other film critic awards and nominations. Bardem won the Best Actor Award at the 2004 Venice Film Festival for his performance in Alejandro Amenabar’s film The Sea Inside, making him the second actor ever to win the award twice. He also won a Goya Award and received a Golden Globe® nomination for this role. Bardem has won the Goya Award; Spain’s equivalent of the Oscar, five times and has received a total of eight nominations. 

In 2000, Bardem received his first Academy Award® nomination for his portrayal of the Cuban poet and dissident Reinaldo Arenas in Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls. He was named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, received Best Actor honors from the National Society of Film Critics, the Independent Spirit Awards, the National Board of Review, and received a Golden Globe® nomination for this role. 

His other notable film credits include Ridley Scott’s The Counselor, Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder; Eat, Pray, Love, opposite Julia Roberts; Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, for which he was again nominated for a Golden Globe® and Independent Spirit Award; John Malkovich’s directorial debut The Dancer Upstairs; Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s Mondays in the Sun, which was named best film at the San Sebastian Film Festival; Michael Mann’s Collateral; Mike Newell’s Love in the Time of Cholera; and Milos Forman’s Goya’s Ghosts, opposite Natalie Portman.