Javier Bardem is a charming and skilled Spanish actor who rose to prominence in the 1990s. He was born on March 1, 1969, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain.

Bardem, who was born into a family of actors and filmmakers, had his professional debut when he was five years old. After briefly studying painting in Madrid, he pursued an acting career.

In 1992, he received widespread acclaim, particularly from women, for his role as an underwear model hired to romance a factory worker in Jamón, jamón.

Three years later, he proved he was more than a sex symbol by winning a Goya Award for best supporting actor in Das contados for his depiction of a drug addict (1994; Running Out of Time). In Boca a boca (1995; Mouth to Mouth), he gained laughs and another Goya Award as an ambitious actor who falls in love with a customer while working for a telephone sex service.

Bardem later played a wheelchair-bound cop in Pedro Almodóvar’s Carne trémula.

Javier Bardem children: Meet Luna Encinas Cruz, Leo Encinas Cruz

For their decades in Hollywood, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are a remarkably private couple; they married secretly in 2010, have two children together, Leo and Luna, and live in a Madrid suburb in their native Spain.