Javier Bardem is a Spanish actor who has won critical praise for his role in No Country For Old Men, a role which landed him a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Javier has acting in his blood: grandson of actress Matilde Munoz Sampedro, nephew of screenwriter and director Juan Antonio Bardem as well as his older siblings also being actors.Bardem was twenty years old when he starred in his first motion picture The Ages of Lulu.He went on to star in a string of Spanish movies including Jamon, jamon and Hue vos de oro, for which he was nominated for Best Lead Actor at the Goya Awards, Spanish equivalent of the Oscars.He went on to win at the Goya Awards for Best Supporting Actor in 1995 for Dias contados and Best Lead Actor a year later for Boca a boca.His breakthrough international role came in Julian Schnabel's 2000 movie Before Night Falls, were he played Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, starring alongside Olivier Martinez and Johnny Depp.

His performance bagged him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, he was the first Spaniard to be recognised at these awards.

In 2004 he won the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival for his role in The Sea Inside.

Directed by Alejandro Amenber, The Sea Inside is based on the real life story of Ramon Sampedro, played by Bardem, an assisted suicide activist.

The film went on to win the 2004 Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and fourteen Goya Awards including Best Picture, Director and Leading Actor.

Bardem followed up this role with a brief appearance in Michael Mann's Collateral, which starred Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.

However it is his current role in the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men that has brought him to the attention of movie audiences.

Bardem plays violent hitman Anton Chigurh who is hired to retrieve a case containing two million dollars stolen by Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin).

But following the growing number of bodies is local Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) as the three play a game of cat and mouse across Texas and Mexico.

The film has picked up several Best Picture and Best Director awards on the Critics Award's circuit this year. And Bardem won a Broadcast Film Critics Choice Awards for Best Supporting Actor to go with his Golden Globe. He is hotly tipped to pick up the Best Supporting Actor Oscar next month.

Bardem will next star in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz and is in talks to play fictional filmmaker Guido Contini in Nine.

No Country For Old Men is released 18th January.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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