Javier Calderon was born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, and moved from the city of Toa Alta with his parents and two older sisters to the United States when he was four. By the age of three, he was already drawing and, a few short years later, began playing the piano and the guitar. Aside from a few less than stellar piano lessons when young, he never received any formal training in the arts - singing, playing electric and bass guitars, the piano, and various percussive instruments solely by ear. He received a degree in Philosophy from The University of Texas in San Antonio and, a few years later, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the arts.Along with his various artistic pursuits, Javier is also an accomplished pugilist. As an amateur, he competed at the national level of the sport, and, as a professional, he has shared the ring and been in training camps with some of the best boxers that have ever put on a pair of gloves.He currently lives in Hollywood, California (2009).

For his portrayal of Joshua Holden - the intense and obsessive lead character in the film "The God Project" - he gained and then lost an accumulated 106 pound of weight.Normally weighing about 160lbs, he took approximately six months lifting weights and eating a strict diet of, in his own words, "Everything I could get my hands on," and ballooned up to 208 lbs, only to turn around and - in an even more remarkable feat of method acting - starve himself for two months to lose 60 pounds. To accomplish this, he ate not one single bite of food during the entire two month period, subsisting on only lemon water and juice. This, along with running two miles a day with a plastic sauna suit on dropped him from 208 lbs to 146 lbs.The boxing gym scenes in Xander Cohen were filmed at the world famous Wild Card Boxing Gym in Hollywood California, where Manny Pacquiao - boxing's number one rated pound-for-pound fighter - is trained by Freddie Roach - boxing's number one rated coach.For the sparring scenes in Xander Cohen, Calderon went head to head with Golden Gloves champion Zachary Wolhman. There was no fight choreography for the scenes, and the camera crew was instructed to simply capture as much of the action as possible while Calderon and Wohlman exchanged punch after brutal punch for the entire duration.The final fight of the movie, similar to the sparring sessions but ultimately more dangerous because no protective sparring gear was used, involved a heated, unchoreographed boxing match between Calderon and professional world champion boxer Kingsley "Sharp Knuckle" Ikeke.