Profiles

Penelope Cruz



"Here I'm going out every night because nobody recognises me," Spanish export Penelope Cruz said of her Hollywood nightlife. That was in 1999. Before she co-starred with Hollywood heavyweights Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, and Nicolas Cage. Before All About My Mother won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Before she was nominated for an Oscar for Volver. And before she became the off-screen love interest of one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

Penelope Cruz Sanchez was born on April 28, 1974, in Madrid, Spain, to Eduardo, a mechanic, and hairdresser Encarna. Though a happy child, she was also wilful. "My mother used to give me to my grandmother for the holidays and scream, 'I can't take this child'," says Penelope. As a youngster she threw her boundless energy into dancing and studied at Spain's National Conservatory before beating 300 other girls in a local talent agency audition. Bit parts in TV commercials followed, but it was 1992's Oscar-winning Belle Epoque which put her on the map.

The "Spanish Enchantress" as she's known, was soon on the A-list of Spanish talent. Pedro Almodovar cast her in Live Flesh and in the same year she starred in the psychological thriller Abre Los Ojos, which won several Goyas, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars.

"A tape appeared on my desk," says The Hi-Lo Country director Stephen Frears, who cast Penelope in her first major English-speaking role. "I went and looked at it, and there was Venus. She's absolutely gorgeous. And very, very good, too."

Since then she's worked non-stop. Yet Hollywood success hasn't changed her. She's still the little girl from Madrid who wanted to make her family proud. She returns to Spain frequently to visit her brother Eduardo and her sister Monica, as well as her parents, who recently divorced. She has even flown in for less than 24 hours to spend the day with her grandmother.

She was so thrilled about her role in The Hi-Lo Country that she donated her entire salary from the film to one of Mother Teresa's charitable funds. She has done volunteer work in Uganda and Calcutta, and vigorously campaigns for social justice and children's rights.

While her roles have been decidedly varied – she has played a pregnant nun with AIDS, a bookish writer, a Brazilian chef, and the lover of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels – her English-speaking characters to date have been underwritten and less than challenging. Her turn in 2001's Vanilla Sky earned a mixed reception from critics, but for Penelope there was a bright side - her on-screen love affair with co-star Tom Cruise eventually led to a real-life romance.

But the demands of their respective careers eventually proved too much, and they split in January 2004. Penelope remains good friends with the actor, and was one of the first to visit Tom and Katie after their daughter Suri was born in April 2006. Since then she has been linked with her Sahara co-star Matthew McConaughey, although the pair split up in May 2006. There seems to be little doubt, however, that the movie industry's love affair with Penelope is built to last.