Played won his first international notice with "The Horseman on the Roof" (1995), in which he played a dashing 19th Century Italian cavalry officer who falls in love with a married woman (Juliette Binoche).

Martinez slipped into acting. Both his father and grandfather had owned garages, and after Martinez finished schooling in his native Paris, he worked in numerous jobs for about five years before deciding on acting as a career. His first film roles were in "Plein fer/Full Steel" (1990), the story of a potentially deadly petanque competition, and Jean-Jacques Beineix's "IP5" (1991). In the latter, he portrayed a graffiti artist whose life is changed by a an odd old man (Yves Montand). The next year he won the most promising actor Cesar Award for Bertrand Blier's "1,2,3 Soleil". Jean-Paul Rappeneau's "The Horseman on the Roof"--a stunning romance in which Martinez and Binoche do not even kiss--and "Mon Homme/My Man" (1996) followed.

In 2000, Martinez landed a starring role in the Academy Award?-nominated film Before Night Falls, offered a superlative supporting performance as Cuban writer Lazaro Gomez Carriles in ", Julian Schnabel's film adaptation of the memoirs of Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas. The actor had the challenge of portraying Arenas' friend (who also contributed to the script) who steadfastly stood by the writer through his battle with AIDS.

Then as a book dealer with whom Diane Lane has an adulterous affair in Unfaithful (2002), also starring Richard Gere. Martinez played a supporting role in S.W.A.T. (2003) starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell, followed by Taking Lives (2004), with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke