Javier Encinas Bardem was born on March 1, 1969 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands). Long considered one the best of Spain’s new batch of movie actors, he started gaining international recognition in 2000. Unlike Antonio Banderas, whose ascent into Hollywood circles has been a slow and steady process of increasingly bigger roles in mainstream movies, Bardem has made himself known among American film cognoscenti with a few crucial roles - most noticeably, as the homosexual Cuban poet and disident Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls, shot in Mexico and directed by the artist Julian Schnabel, which was a complete departure from the macho image he portrayed in the first of his major Spanish films, Jamón, Jamón. Bardem was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for Bef ..[Full version]