Robert De Niro made him do it. Become an actor, that is. Javier Bardem, 38, first thought his place might be in front of the camera after seeing Raging Bull when he was a child. The Canary Islands—born Bardem comes from a filmmaking family—his uncle did jail time for directing anti-Fascist films in Franco-era Spain—but when Bardem saw De Niro's performance, he couldn't tell if he was watching an actor or a real boxer. He said to himself, How beautiful that is to really become somebody else. Bardem didn't yet want to be a performer, but he thought, If I would be an actor, I would like to be that actor.

Some 30 films later, along with a 2001 Oscar nomination for his lead role in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls, he is becoming "that actor" for the 2000s. The rough-hewn, brawny rising star with the flattened nose of a fighter (he's played rugby and worked as a bouncer, and invites comparison to Marlon Brando, though Anthony Quinn might be more apt) has two new films out this fall: the eagerly awaited No Country for Old Men, made by the Coen brothers and based on Cormac McCarthy's pared-down, page-turning impression of Elmore Leonard; and Mike Newell's Love in the Time of Cholera, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's exquisite novel. Going forward, the actor has just finished a new picture with Woody Allen, which co-stars his friend Penelope Cruz; the two actors are in talks about re-upping together for the musical Nine, the first Rob MarshallHarvey Weinstein pairing since Chicago.

Bardem plays a sociopathic killer in No Country for Old Men. "Since Blood Simple, the Coens have been special to me," he says, recalling their first film, released in 1984. But when he met them to discuss the new movie, he told them he was wrong for the part. "I don't drive, I don't speak English, and I hate violence," he said. The brothers laughed, and one or the other replied, "Maybe that's the reason we want you."