Carlos Encinas Bardem (born 7 March 1963) is a Spanish actor and writer. He is often cast in "tough guy" roles, if not outright villains.[1] In addition to his native Spain, he has worked in film and television in Latin America and the United States.[2] He has received three Goya Award nominations, both in acting and screenwriting categories, as well as six Actors and Actresses Union Award nominations (and two wins).
Bardem adapted alongside Santiago Zannou his own novel about the genesis of violence Alacrán enamorado to screen.[11] He also featured in the film, titled Scorpion in Love (2013), as a boxing coach, and won nominations to the Goya both for Best Adapted Screenplay and for Best Supporting Performance.[12][9] He described his character as "a deeply human and therefore imperfect character, who lives in permanent defeat, but who finds reasons to get up".[12] He portrayed evangelical pastor and charlatan Elías in Mexican thriller González: falsos profetas (2013), receiving a nomination for the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actor.[13][14] In 2015, he appeared in Manolo Caro's comedy Elvira I Will Give You My Life But I'm Using It playing Gustavo, the husband of Cecilia Suárez's lead character Elvira.[15] Continuing his work in Mexico, he played a football agent in comedy-drama series Club de Cuervos,[16] which debuted on Netflix in 2015.
In 2018, he starred in Colombian crime film Pickpockets in the role of Chucho, a mentor of young pickpockets.[18]
In 2019, Bardem published his sixth novel, Mongo blanco (Plaza & Janés), which deals with 19th-century slave trader Pedro Blanco.[19][20] Bardem reported that the novel's main theme "is evil, evil as a consequence of the evil exercise of power and extreme inequality".[20]
Bardem played the villainous Count Flaín of León, an antagonist to Ruy Díaz de Vivar, in the Prime Video series El Cid, set in 11th-century Iberia.[21]
He featured as the authoritarian father of Bob Pop[es] in the former's autofictional series Queer You Are (2021), in a role in which Bardem's face is not displayed onscreen.[22] Resuming collaboration with Álex de la Iglesia, he played a "narco-satanic" cardinal in the HBO series 30 Coins.[23]
His 2023 novel Badaq (Plaza & Janés) is a moral fable and criticism of the Spanish empire dealing with the plight of an Indonesian female rhinoceros captured in the island of Pawu and taken to Madrid in the 16th century.[24]
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Bardem attending a 2012 demonstration in Madrid in solidarity with the Sahrawi people with his mother Pilar
Bardem is committed to left-wing positions.[25] He has sided in favour of the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people and has criticised the inaction of the Spanish political class in the matter since 1975.[26][27] In the buildup to the 2011 Spanish general election, he lent public support to the electoral list of United Left.[28]
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