Penélope Cruz

• 1. Introduction

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  Penélope Cruz was fifteen years old in 1989 when she won an audition against more than 300 other girls. Only a short time earlier, an agent had sent her away three times because she was too young. Cruz kept coming back anyway, and she says she is still with that agent after all these years. Katrina Bayonas, who represented her by 1999, remembered the audition itself in vivid terms. She said the teenager "was absolutely magic" and had a presence that came from within. Cruz grew up in a town in the province of Madrid, trained as a dancer, and went on to a career that crossed languages, countries and reputations. This documentary asks what drove a determined teenager to keep knocking on doors. It asks how a Spanish actress handled English-language films that stumbled with critics, and why the directors of her own country kept calling her back. It also asks what she chose to do with her fame once it arrived.

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• 2. Alcobendas and Ballet

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  Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born on the 28th of April 1974 in Alcobendas, a town in the province of Madrid. Her mother, Encarna Sánchez, was an Andalusian hairdresser who also served as a personal manager. Her father, Eduardo Cruz, was an Extremaduran retailer and car mechanic. She has a sister, Mónica, who is also an actress, and a brother, Eduardo, who is a singer. A paternal half-sister, Salma, completes the family. Cruz was raised Roman Catholic and describes a happy childhood, with long hours spent at her grandmother's apartment. She remembers playing with friends while being aware that she was acting. In her words, "I would think of a character and pretend to be someone else".

  Dance came before acting. Cruz studied classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory. She added three years of Spanish ballet training and four years of theatre at Cristina Rota's school. She credits ballet with giving her the discipline that her acting career later demanded.

  At ten or eleven she became a film lover, and her father bought a Betamax machine, which was quite rare in her neighborhood. As a teenager she was balancing night classes in high school, ballet and casting calls. A turning point came when she saw Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, a 1990 film by the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. It made her want to act. Her first screen work arrived in 1989, when she appeared in a music video for the Spanish pop group Mecano's song "La Fuerza del Destino".

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• 3. Spain's New Face

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  From 1990 to 1991, Cruz hosted La Quinta Marcha on the Spanish channel Telecinco. It was a talk show run by teenagers for a teenage audience. Her first feature film was the art house comedy drama Jamón jamón. She played Silvia, a young woman expecting her first child. Her partner's mother disapproves and pays a character played by Javier Bardem to seduce her away.

  The role made her famous quickly, partly because she appeared topless. People magazine said it turned her into a major sex symbol. Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes noted that she became an overnight sensation as much for her nude scenes as for her talent. Looking back in 1999, Cruz told the Los Angeles Daily News that she "wasn't really ready for the nudity". She added, "I have no regrets because I wanted to start working and it changed my life." When Rose asked how she worried about being perceived, she answered, "I just knew I had to do the complete opposite."

  Critics took the performance seriously. Chris Hicks of the Deseret News called her portrayal "enchanting". Roger Ebert wrote that the film stars actors of considerable physical appeal, "most particularly Penélope Cruz as Silvia". She earned nominations for a Spanish Actors Union Newcomer Award and a Goya Award for Best Actress. She also played the virginal Luz in the Academy Award-winning Belle Époque.

  Between 1993 and 1996, Cruz appeared in ten Spanish and Italian films. At twenty she moved to New York for two years, living at Christopher and Greenwich, to study ballet and English between jobs. She recalls learning English rather late. Before that she knew only her casting dialogue and the phrases "How are you?" and "Thank you".

  The year 1997 brought three roles. In Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health, she played Diana, a fan of John Lennon who tries and fails to meet him. In the opening scene of Almodóvar's Live Flesh, she played a prostitute who gives birth on a bus. In the Spanish science fiction drama Open Your Eyes, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, she played Sofia, the love interest of Eduardo Noriega's character. The film was praised but did not do well commercially. Writing in September 2002, Kevin N. Laforest of the Montreal Film Journal singled out one shot in which Cruz enters a room in a greenish glow. He thought it came straight from Hitchcock's Vertigo.

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• 4. Crossing the Atlantic

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  The Hi-Lo Country, directed by Stephen Frears, was Cruz's first American film. She played Josepha, the Mexican girlfriend of Billy Crudup's character, a role described as a consolation prize. She has said that she struggled to understand people speaking English on set. The film failed with critics and audiences, though she earned an ALMA Award nomination for Best Actress.

  Back in Spain, The Girl of Your Dreams gave her a far larger part. She played Macarena Granada, a singer in an on-and-off relationship with a character named Blas, played by Antonio Resines. They belong to a Francoist film troupe that travels from Spain during the Spanish Civil War to Nazi Germany to make a joint production with the studio UFA. Jonathan Holloland of Variety wrote that the film proved Cruz to be "an actress first and a pretty face second". She won a Goya Award and a Spanish Actors' Union Award, and she was nominated for a European Film Award.

  Almodóvar then cast her in All About My Mother, as Sister María Rosa Sanz, a pregnant nun with AIDS. The film earned favorable reviews and grossed over $67 million worldwide, doing better abroad than in the United States.

  Woman on Top gave her her first American lead. She played Isabelle, a world-class chef who has had motion sickness since birth. Lisa Nesselson of Variety said Cruz and her co-star Harold Perrineau "burst off the screen". In All the Pretty Horses, she played Alejandra Villarreal opposite Matt Damon. Susan Stark of The Detroit News praised the cast under director Billy Bob Thornton, though Bob Longigo of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution thought the pair's chemistry "would hardly warm a can of beans".

  In 2001, two films raised her profile. Vanilla Sky was Cameron Crowe's remake of Open Your Eyes. Crowe cast Cruz in the same role, now named Sofia Serrano, and gave Tom Cruise the part Noriega had played. The reviews were mixed, but the film made $200 million worldwide. In Blow, based on Bruce Porter's 1993 book about a small-town cocaine dealer, she played Mirtha Jung, the wife of Johnny Depp's character. It also drew mixed reviews and earned $80 million worldwide. Mark Salvo of The Austin Chronicle wrote that her performance "sucks you right in".

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• 5. Years of Bad Reviews

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  Captain Corelli's Mandolin closed out 2001 with a disappointing reception. Cruz played Pelagia, who falls in love with another man while her fiancé is away fighting in the Second World War. Critics were unkind, though the film made $62 million worldwide. That same year, Don't Tempt Me drew harsher notices. Jeff Vice of the Deseret News called casting Cruz as a tough girl a "hilariously bad" idea.

  In 2002 she took a minor role in Waking Up in Reno, which had negative reviews and failed at the box office. Gothika followed in 2003, with Cruz as Chloe Sava, a patient in a mental hospital. David Rooney of Variety said she added a "serviceably malevolent edge" to the part. Her work in Fanfan la Tulipe fared worse. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that she "deserves a special Cannes Razzie for a performance of purest teak".

  In 2004 came Noel, in which she played the girlfriend of Paul Walker's character, and Head in the Clouds, a romantic drama set in the 1930s. Bruce Birkland of Jam! Canoe wrote that she seemed "to be in a different film from the rest of the cast". Desson Thompson of The Washington Post was harsher. The film performed poorly at the box office.

  The costliest disappointment was Sahara in 2005. Cruz earned $1.6 million for her supporting role as Dr. Eva Rojas. The film grossed $110 million worldwide but did not recoup its $160 million budget. Moviefone later called it one of the most famous flops in history. In the same year she played Gloria, a prostitute with cancer, in Chromophobia, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

  Her best work in these years came in Italian. Sergio Castellitto's melodrama Don't Move gave her the role of Italia, and she competed with Sabrina Impacciatore for the part. Cruz learned Italian to play it. She won the David di Donatello for her performance and, in 2004, the European Film Award for Best Actress.

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• 6. Almodóvar and the Oscar

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  In Volver, Cruz played Raimunda, a working-class woman who goes to great lengths to protect her 14-year-old daughter Paula. A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the part placed Cruz near the top of any credible list of "flesh-and-blood screen goddesses". Carina Chocano of The Los Angeles Times observed that Cruz, who has said Hollywood rarely lets her be more than pretty, gave Raimunda "an awesome resoluteness". At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, she shared the Best Actress award with five of her co-stars. She also won a Goya Award and a European Film Award. The film earned her nominations for the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was the first Spanish actress ever nominated for an Academy Award.

  In Vicky Cristina Barcelona, directed by Woody Allen, Cruz played María Elena, the passionate and unstable ex-wife of an artist. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that her stardom suddenly made sense and that she was "on fire". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said she "certainly walks off with the film". At the 81st Academy Awards she won Best Supporting Actress, and she also took the BAFTA Award and a Goya Award. She is the only Spanish actress to have won an Academy Award, and she was the sixth Hispanic performer to do so.

  Almodóvar has called her his muse. Their later work together included Broken Embraces, in which she played Lena, and a cameo with Antonio Banderas in I'm So Excited!, a return to the director's campy comedies of earlier decades. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com noted that Cruz "doesn't coast on her beauty" in Broken Embraces. They reunited again for Pain and Glory in 2019.

  Cruz also lent her voice to a guinea pig spy named Juarez in G-Force, which made over $290 million worldwide. Her next major role was Carla Albanese, the lead character's mistress in the musical Nine. Variety reported that she had first auditioned for the star role of Claudia, which went to Nicole Kidman. She trained for three months for the dance numbers and earned an Oscar nomination. As Nine wrapped, its director Rob Marshall invited her to join a very different kind of film.

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• 7. Blockbusters and Late Acclaim

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  In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Cruz played Angelica, a former love interest of Jack Sparrow who blames him for her corruption. Marshall said she was the only actress considered. She spent two months working out and learning fencing. During filming she discovered that she was pregnant. The costume department redesigned her wardrobe to be more elastic, and her sister Mónica was hired to double for her in risky scenes. The film earned more than $1.046 billion worldwide. On the 1st of April 2011, before its release, Cruz received the 2,436th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in front of the El Capitan Theatre. She was the first Spanish actress to receive one.

  In 2012, Cruz played Mario in the first Nintendo commercial promoting New Super Mario Bros. 2 and the Nintendo 3DS XL. She spoke Italian again in Woody Allen's To Rome with Love, as a street-smart prostitute. Allen compared her performance to those of Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren. The Week singled out her "exuberantly, cartoonishly sexy" turn.

  Ridley Scott's The Counselor in 2013 placed her in an ensemble with Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt and her husband, Javier Bardem. She played Laura, the only innocent character in the story. Reviews were mostly negative. In 2015 she co-produced and starred in Ma Ma, directed by Julio Medem, as Magda, a mother and unemployed teacher diagnosed with breast cancer. Cruz called it "one of the most complex, beautiful characters I've ever been offered, the most difficult." Her eighth Goya nomination followed.

  In 2016 she appeared in Zoolander 2 as a secret Interpol agent. In 2017 she starred in Loving Pablo as the journalist Virginia Vallejo, opposite Bardem as Pablo Escobar. She studied hundreds of Vallejo's interviews to prepare. That year she also played the missionary Pilar Estravados in Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express.

  In 2018 she made her television debut as Donatella Versace in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. The role brought her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Everybody Knows, directed by Asghar Farhadi, opened that year's Cannes Film Festival. Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times praised the "natural, unforced chemistry" between Cruz and Bardem.

  In Parallel Mothers, premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, she played Janis, a photographer whose affair with a married man leads to pregnancy. She won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. It also earned her a second Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards, her fourth nomination overall. Stephanie Zacharek of Time called it possibly the best performance of her career. The Museum of Modern Art in New York later honored her for her achievements.

  In 2022 she played a housewife in the Italian drama L'immensità, and she produced and starred in On the Fringe. She appeared as Laura, Enzo Ferrari's wife, in Michael Mann's Ferrari in 2023. A collaboration with Residente and Sílvia Pérez Cruz on the track "313" won a Latin Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video in 2024. On the 18th of October 2025, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures gave her its Icon Award.

  At the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, she was reported to have joined The Black Ball, with a role written specifically for her. When the film premiered at Cannes in 2026, she played a cupletista named Nené Romero. She also co-stars in the comedy-drama The Invite, as a psychotherapist and sexologist. Early in 2026 she was reported to have signed on to lead an untitled Nancy Meyers comedy aimed at a Christmas 2027 release.

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• 8. Beyond the Screen

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  In 2006, Cruz became a spokesmodel for the French cosmetics company L'Oréal and receives $2 million a year for it. She had earlier appeared in print ads for Mango, and had a contract with Ralph Lauren in 2001. With her sister Mónica she designed clothing for Mango. Their second collection, in 2007, drew on Brigitte Bardot and summers in Saint-Tropez. In April 2010, she replaced Kate Winslet as the face of Lancôme's Trésor fragrance. Mario Testino shot the campaign at Paris's Hotel de Crillon. She has been a house ambassador for Chanel since 2018. In May 2023 she became a brand ambassador for the airline Emirates and also appears in ads for Geox.

  In 2010, she was guest editor for French Vogue, with a photo shoot focused on larger-size models. On the cover of Spanish Vogue's December 2010 issue, she agreed to be photographed by Peter Lindbergh only if her pregnancy did not show. Esquire named her the Sexiest Woman Alive in 2014.

  Her charity work began early. Cruz has volunteered in Uganda and India, where she spent a week with Mother Teresa that included helping in a leprosy clinic. The trip inspired her to help start a foundation supporting homeless girls in India, where she sponsors two young women. She gave her salary from The Hi-Lo Country to Mother Teresa's mission. In the early 2000s she photographed Tibetan children in Nepal for an exhibition attended by the Dalai Lama. She also photographed residents of the Pacific Lodge Boys' Home, many of them former gang members and recovering substance abusers. "These kids break my heart," she said. On the 1st of December 2010, while pregnant, she helped light the Empire State Building red for International AIDS Day. In 2012 and 2018 she posed for PETA's anti-fur campaign.

  Cruz met Javier Bardem on the set of Jamón jamón. They began dating in 2007, after reuniting for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. They married in early July 2010 in a private ceremony at a friend's home in the Bahamas. Their son, Leo Encinas Cruz, was born in Los Angeles in January 2011. Their daughter, Luna Encinas Cruz, was born in Madrid in July 2013. After the births, Cruz became an advocate of breastfeeding in public.

  Before Bardem, she had a three-year relationship with Tom Cruise that ended in January 2004. In June 2003, she settled a defamation lawsuit against the Australian magazine New Idea. The magazine apologised, paid her legal costs and donated AU$5,000 to a charity she chose. Her father, Eduardo, died at home in 2015, aged 62, of a heart attack. Friends call her Pe, and she owns a clothing store in Madrid, the city where her daughter was born.

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