Favorite 2008 Oscar Winner:

 Javier Bardem
From: Favorite Hunks & Other Things

 Incredibly Hot Oscar Winner Javier Bardem.

 Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (Spanish pronunciation: [xaˈβjer βarˈðen]; born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. In 2007, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. He has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los Lunes al sol and Mar adentro. He portrayed the main antagonist Raoul Silva in the 2012 James Bond movie Skyfall, for which he received both a BAFTA and a SAG nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

 Bardem has also won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, five Goya Awards, two European Film Awards, a Prize for Best Actor at Cannes and two Coppa Volpis at Venice for his work. He is the first Spaniard to be nominated for an Oscar (Best Actor, 2000, for Before Night Falls), as well as the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award. He received his third Academy Award nomination, and second Best Actor nomination, for the film Biutiful.

 Bardem was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Pilar Bardem (born María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz), is an actress, and his father of Cuban descent, José Carlos Encinas Doussinague (1931–1995), was a businessman involved in environmental work. The two separated shortly after his birth. His mother raised him alone. Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers and actors dating back to the earliest days of Spanish cinema; he is a grandson of actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and nephew of screenwriter and director Juan Antonio Bardem. Both his older brother and sister, Carlos and Mónica, are actors. He also comes from a political background, as his uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by Franco for his anti-fascist films. Bardem was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith by his grandmother.

 As a child, he spent time at theaters and on film sets. At age six, he made his first film appearance, in Fernando Fernán Gómez's El Pícaro (The Scoundrel). He also played rugby for the underage Spanish National Team. Though he grew up in a family full of actors, Bardem did not see himself going into the family business. Actually, painting was his first love. He went on to study painting for four years at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y Oficios. In need of money he took acting jobs to support his painting, but he also says he was a bad painter and eventually abandoned that career pursuit. In 1989, for the Spanish comedy show El Día Por Delante (The Day Ahead), he had to wear a Superman costume for a comedic sketch, a job that made him question whether he wanted to be an actor at all. Bardem has confessed to having worked as a stripper (for one day only) during his struggling acting career.

 Bardem is now fluent in English. He is also a stated fan of heavy metal music, with a particular penchant for the band AC/DC. Bardem cannot drive, only getting behind the wheel for film roles, and he consistently refers to himself as a "worker", and not an actor. Bardem was raised as a Catholic, but is now an atheist. Following the legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain in 2005, Bardem incited controversy when he stated that if he were gay, he would get married "right away tomorrow, just to screw the Church" (mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia). In May 2011 Bardem teamed up with The Enough Project's co-founder John Prendergast to raise awareness about conflict minerals in eastern Congo.

 In 2007, Bardem began dating Penélope Cruz, his co-star in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem and Cruz have maintained a low public profile. They are famously private and will not talk about their personal lives. The couple married in July 2010 in The Bahamas. They have two children. One son, named Leo Encinas Cruz (in keeping with Spanish naming custom), born in January 22, 2011, in Los Angeles, and one daughter, named Luna Encinas Cruz, born July 22, 2013, in Madrid.