The youngest member of a family of actors that has been making films since the early days of Spanish cinema. He got his start in the family business at the age of 6 when he appeared in his first feature. During his teenage years, he acted in several TV series, played rugby for the Spanish National Team and toured the country with an independent theatrical group. His early film role as a sexy stud in the black comedy, Jamon Jamon (1992) (aka Ham Ham) propelled him to instant popularity and threatened to typecast him as nothing more than a brawny sex symbol. Determined to avert a beefcake image, he refused similar subsequent roles and has gone on to win acclaim for his ability to appear almost unrecognisable from film to film.

With over 25 movies and numerous awards under his belt, it is his stirring, passionate performance as the persecuted Cuban writer, Reynaldo Arenas, in Before Night Falls (2000) that will long be remembered as his breakthrough role. He received 5 Best Actor awards and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a strong-willed man who survived censorship, imprisonment and homosexual intolerance for the privilege to write freely, only to commit suicide at the age of 47, in New York, ending a battle with AIDS.