Alves was born the son of Portuguese guest workers in Paris. At 20, he became a full-time actor and initially played minor roles in French television productions and in some short films.^[2]

His directorial debut, apart from a short film in 2002 'À l'abri des regards indiscrets', was in 2013 with the immigrant comedy La cage dorée. The film was inspired by his parents' biography,^[3] and Alves has a small guest role in the film as 'Miguel'. The movie has been a great success in France and Portugal, and has also been followed by a number of other countries, including Australia.^[2] In Portugal, it became in 2013 the most watched film of the year, with 755 000 viewings.^[4] In Germany he came as Portugal, mon amour in the cinemas. The film had 1.2m spectators in France and sold well internationally.^[5]

Alves played in 2014 in Yves Saint Laurent, a biopic about the life of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.^[6][7]

In 2017, he directed a documentary As Vozes do Fado (or "The Voices of Fado") with Christophe Fonseca, screened at the Le Lincoln Cinema, Paris.^[8][9] A CD "Amália: Vozes do Fado" was released later, a homage to Amália Rodrigues, a Fado singer.^[10]

In 2018, he started working on an upcoming comedy called Miss, by producer-director Hugo Gelin with co-star model Alex Wetter as a young man who sets his heart on winning the Miss France contest.^[5]

In 2017, he currently lives in Bairro Alto, Lisbon, where he used to take holidays when living in Paris.^[11]