Javier Bardem remembers the childhood moment when he realized he was a performer. ''I was playing make-believe like any other kid,'' the 39-year-old actor says from his Madrid home. ``And there was a moment when something clicked inside that made me aware of myself, that allowed me to watch myself playing from the outside. Up to then play had been unconscious.

``The difference between an actor and anyone else is that awareness of the playing.''

He has been playing ever since, immersed in roles so disparate that a casual observer might not realize they're all filled by the same man.

''One of the great pleasures of my work is to impersonate others, to hide myself behind those guys,'' Bardem says. ``To fill myself with someone else.''

He has the Oscar to prove it.

For several years a favorite of the art-house crowd for his work in such films as Before Night Falls and The Sea Inside, Bardem roared into the mainstream with last year's Coen brothers hit No Country for Old Men. As the eerie killer Anton Chigurh he was mesmerizing and walked off with the statuette for best supporting actor.

MANY ROLES

He has portrayed murderers, a paraplegic, a gay Cuban poet, a crazed monk during the Spanish Inquisition, a burly out-of-work shipbuilder, often transforming himself physically, gaining or losing weight, shaving his head, growing a beard.

Now, in Woody Allen's new comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Bardem finally plays the sort of role you'd think would be most obvious for him.

He's Jose Antonio, a Latin lover and sensuous painter who finds himself flitting among three women: a couple of Americans visiting Barcelona (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) and his mercurial ex-wife (Penelope Cruz).

With his bedroom eyes and broken nose (the result, he says, of a barroom sucker punch a decade ago), Bardem would seem a natural to portray sensual men. Yet he has steered away from those roles since his first big taste of success -- playing a stud in the 1992 Spanish film Jamon, Jamon. After that international hit, manly roles were the only ones offered him, but Bardem vowed to hold out for meaty character parts that would challenge him and his audience. So why play the Latin lover now?

``Well, it's Woody Allen.''

Playing a painter wasn't difficult. At one time Bardem hoped for a career as an artist (he also has been a construction worker and nightclub bouncer).

``What's different is that Jose Antonio is an abstract artist who pours and throws paint. My own art is much more realistic. But I must say that after doing the movie I've gone back and picked up my brush again.''

One of the main characters in Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Barcelona.

''Like any other big town, there are many Barcelonas,'' Bardem says. ''This is the one Woody wanted to examine -- a nice, romantic, mellow, quiet town. And it really exists.'' Apparently the romanticism was catching. Bardem and Cruz had been friends ever since Jamon, Jamon. But on Allen's set, that friendship turned to love. The actor refuses to answer questions about his personal life, but one Spanish media source quoted him as saying that he was going to propose to Cruz on a vacation this month.

IN THE FAMILY

It would have been odd if Bardem hadn't become an actor. He was born in the Canary Islands to a family of actors active in the Spanish film industry almost from its inception. His mother, Pilar Bardem, has appeared in more than 100 films in more than 40 years, and his siblings, Carlos and Monica, are actors, too.

That acting is the family business may explain Bardem's matter-of-fact approach to his profession. The biggest fallout after winning the Oscar, he says, was not in how he viewed himself but in how he was viewed by others.

``I try not to let it affect me. But you discover that some people around you have changed. Some people place too much importance on it.

``Five months later things are back to normal. . . . The thing is, you have to let it go. Sure, you celebrate, enjoy the celebrity, drink a bit -- but then let it go. It's not real.

``The real thing is to get a job and do the best you can.

``The real thing is to go to the market, buy a fish and have dinner with your friends.''

Bardem says that throughout his career he has never rushed into roles. He always reads scripts carefully and ponders the possibilities for artistic challenge.

``Just because I won an award is no reason to change. I'm reading, taking my time. . . . and having a life.''

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