Nowadays, the film industry has no shortage of actors with superhuman physiques. Every leading man in every movie works out extensively before appearing on screen, whether they play a superhero, an action hero, a barbarian, or a gladiator.
That makes perfect sense, right? The lack of shirt-ripping muscles on a character makes it hard to believe that they have superhuman strength or intimidating prowess. Despite the fact that many actors play strong characters on screen, Spanish actor Francisco Javier Pastor is the real deal when it comes to physical prowess. He has made a name for himself, playing macho men in movies and TV shows.
At the age of 14, Pastor was a huge fan of action films and actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. At age 22, he began working out at the gym with the goal of developing a superhuman physique and breaking into the film industry. Because of his muscular frame, he landed his first acting role as the protagonist’s executor in Milos Forman and Javier Bardem’s Los Fantasmas de Goya (2006). Then the director Antonio del Real cast him in the role of Damiana’s executioner (Blanca Jara) in the 2007 film La Conjura de El Escorial.
In the 2010 miniseries La Princesa de Éboli, directed by Belén Macas, Pastor played the role of a torturer who tormented Antonio Pérez (Hugo Silva) at the behest of Nuez de Arce (Alex Angulo). In the third season of Con el Culo al aire, he appeared as the goalkeeper who allows Tino Colmenarejo (Paco Tous) and Javi (Adam Jezierski) entry to visit Dulce (Henar Jiménez) in 2013. In episode 6 of Se Hace Saber from 2014, he portrayed Ramón Martirio Pilón.
In 2015, he co-starred with Roger Barclay and was directed by Glenn Paton in the short film H-positive. The following year, he played a psychiatric nurse for El Comisario in Águila Roja (Francis Lorenzo). Pastor played a transvestite destitute crazy man in the 2016 film Que Dios nosperdone, directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. In the same year, he played a Turkish thug in Looking for the North and appears in multiple episodes of Mar de Plástico. In a 2016 film, May God come down and See Him, he portrayed a doorman.
Pastor portrayed Dragan on seasons 2, 4, and 5 of La Casa de Papel (English title: Money Heist) in 2017. In the same year, he also had a small part in Yucatán, in which he played a Moroccan policeman who tortured Brendon. The movie was directed by Daniel Monzón, and Tom of Finland, directed by Dome Karukoski. In 2018, Pastor portrayed Boxer Marcelo on the Netflix series El Continental. In 2019, he played Arturo, Lukas’s rival, in the Neverfilms series The Karate Boy of channel playz, and Yago in the romantic drama Amar es para siempre.
Pastor was cast as Mario, Patricia Conde’s cousin, on the 2020 TV show Dar cerapulir 0. He played Pedrito on the 2021 television series Luimelia. Recently, he starred in the blockbuster hit Los renglones torcidos de Dios, which premiered in Spain on October 6, 2022, and will soon be available on Netflix. In the film, Pastor played the role of a hospital patient called Hombre Elefante (The Elephant Man). He portrayed the character of a giant man who has a habit of staring intently at whatever or whoever catches his attention.
Although, the film industry has never been short on leading men willing to bulk up to a superhuman size to perform all kinds of ass-kicking duties, only a handful can come close to what Pastor is capable of. Pastor works impressively on his superhuman physique to achieve more roles in movies and TV series, as the film industry is craving ever-larger leading men for their slam-bang extravaganzas.