After impressing with a small part in “The Ages of Lulu,” an erotic drama which perhaps bizarrely also featured his mother Pilar, Javier Bardem got the chance to work with one of Spain’s most prominent filmmakers. The actor played a floor manager in Pedro Almodóvar’s 1991 melodrama “High Heels,” and from then on he never looked back.
A year later, Bardem bagged his first major leading role, underwear-modeling bullfighter Raúl in Bigas Luna’s “Jamón Jamón,” a romantic comedy in which he played opposite his future wife Penélope Cruz. The movie proved to be a major domestic hit, topping the box office chart, while both its stars picked up nominations at the country’s biggest movie ceremony, the Goya Awards.
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Bardem then consolidated his A-list status with performances in Luna’s follow-up, “Huevos de oro,” thriller “El detective y la muerte,” and sex comedy “Boca a boca.” By this point, he was also starting to attract the attention of some pretty big names across the other side of the Atlantic, too.
