Who is Penelope Cruz
Born on April 28, 1974 in Alcobendas, in the municipality of Madrid, from a hairdresser mother and a mechanic father, Eduardo – who died in 2015 -, Penélope Cruz began classical dance lessons at the National Conservatory of Spain at a very young age. and theatre. As a teenager, she chose the profession of actress and went through castings, with a determination that bore fruit: she appeared in a music video and in a Spanish television program in 1989, before playing at the age of 17 in an episode of a series French erotic Rose Series.
A year later, spotted by the Spanish director José Buan Bigas Lunas in 1992, she obtained her first film role in Jambon Jambon. Her role as the beautiful, topless Silvia elevates her to the rank of sex symbol and launches her career. The proposals flow in, which allows the sulphurous Penelope to choose her roles. It is found in particular from 1997 in the films of the talented talented Spanish directors Alejandro Amenabar with Open your eyes and Pedro Almodovar with Everything about my mother (Prize for directing at Cannes in 1999). The actress was asked across the Atlantic in 1998 where she landed her first role in an American film, the western The Hi-Lo Country, by Stephen Frears, then in 2000, in the culinary comedy Love, peppers and bossa nova, by Fina Torres.
2001 marked a turning point in her career: the actress was chosen to play in two major American productions. In Vanilla Sky, (the American remake of Open the eyes of Pedro Almodovar in which the actress had played 4 years before) she is the companion of the Hollywood star actor, Tom Cruise, before camping the wife of the character of Johnny Depp in Blow. After joining the cast of Fanfan la tulipe by Gérard Krawczyk in 2003, Penélope Cruz, who has become a leading international actress, successively gave the reply to Halle Berry in Gothika, by Mathieu Kassovitz (2003) then to Charlize Theron in We Were Free. (2004). She then turns in a more auteur film, A corps perdus, by (and with) Sergio Castellito.
From 2006, she returned to major American productions in Bandidas, which she shared with her friend Salma Hayek. The same year, the director Pedro Almodovar appealed to her again for Volver, which earned her the prize for best actress at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, as well as a Goya prize and a European cinema prize. She also becomes the first Spanish actress to be nominated for an Oscar. In 2008, Woody Allen chose the beautiful Iberian to star in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the story of a love triangle in which she gives the reply to Scarlett Johansson and her compatriot Javier Bardem. Her performance won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The following year, we find her for the fourth time in a film by her friend Pedro Almodovar, Broken Embraces.
In 2010, she starred alongside Oscar-winning actors Daniel Day Lewis and Adrien Brody in, respectively, Nine and Manolete. At the same time, she succeeded Kate Winslet in the advertising campaign for Lancôme’s Trésor perfume and was chosen with her sister Monica in the fall to become the new face of the Swiss brand Vögele. In 2011, she played Blackbeard’s daughter in the fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean (La Fontaine de Jouvence). In the summer of 2012, she becomes Mario in the advertisement for the game New Super Mario Bros, always accompanied by her sister.
On September 11, 2021, she won the prize for best female interpretation for her role in Madres Paralelas, at the Venice Film Festival.
On the private side, in 2001, she began a relationship with Tom Cruise on the set of Vanilla Sky. The couple finally separated after three years of relationship. She then dated actor Matthew McConaughey from February 2005 to June 2006. Since July 2007, she has been in a relationship with Spanish actor Javier Bardem, whom she had met fifteen years earlier on the set of Jambon Jambon. The two actors, now inseparable, were married in July 2010. On January 22, 2011, Penelope gave birth to a little Leonard, nicknamed Leo. On July 22, 2013, the family grew with the birth of a little girl named Luna.
