47 years. Yes, it is the age of Penélope Cruz. The one who will pass the bar of fifty in two and a half years seems to have erased the meaning of the word aging. Getting better suits him better. The years pass and the beautiful Iberian is ever more iconic and charismatic. An intoxicating beauty with an extra soul that age and experience give her, far from the scalpels and other recourse to botox of quite a few of her Hollywood counterparts. The Madrilenian has however managed to forge a career there, without ever completely giving in to her sirens.
She lives in Madrid, near her family
Moreover, it is in her native Spain that she lives, far from the red carpets and other ultra people parties. “I love Los Angeles, but I feel deeply European, she explained in Marie Claire in 2018. Here, the car is not mandatory for any trip. We (note: Penélope and Javier Bardem, her husband) also wanted to be closer to our families. For us, this is very important.” It is said. His life is not only the cinema, even if it was his big dream. Born on April 28, 1974 in Alcobendas, a town in the suburbs of Madrid, Penélope Cruz Sánchez grew up far from glitter. However, beauty is part of her daily life from an early age. Her mother Encarna is a hairdresser and has her own salon. Penélope, her sister MÓnica, three years younger than her, and the youngest Eduardo, born in 1985, regularly do their homework there and, in secret, they admire the women who come to be dolled up. A woman of character, Encarna is a model for her eldest. His father Eduardo, who will die in 2015, is a mechanic. At the Cruz’s, we live without a big income, but we laugh and we work a lot and it’s the madre who wears the panties. Little Pe, as her loved ones call her, is bursting with energy. Her parents help her to channel herself by enrolling her in the national dance conservatory. Very thin, supple and strong-willed, the little girl is gifted and does not hesitate to dance four hours a day in addition to school, until her toes are bleeding. A difficult apprenticeship that instilled in him grace and self-discipline. It was not until 1990 that the beautiful brunette first set foot in the cinema. Coming out of the meeting of the film Attache-moi!, by Pedro Almodóvar, she has only one idea in mind: to become an actress and to shoot for the great Spanish filmmaker. That’s good, AlmodÓvar also lives in Madrid. The hot brunette is only a teenager but she digs up her address and goes to her hero’s neighborhood as soon as she can. She meets him from afar but ends up understanding that talking to him will probably not be enough to get hired on one of his films. So, with the agreement of her parents, the good student enrolls in Cristina Rota’s theater lessons and ends up hosting a musical program on television. She appears in the clip of one of the most popular Spanish bands of the 80s and 90s, Mecano, and even lives a romance with one of its musicians, Nacho Cano.
His career
1992: JAMON JAMON
With this first film in which she reveals body and talent, Penélope becomes a sex symbol in Spain and meets a certain Javier Bardem.
1999: ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER
Pedro Almodóvar offers him the role of Rosa in this magnificent drama, which will be awarded in 2000 at the Oscars and opens the doors of Hollywood to him.
2001: VANILLA SKY
Penélope takes over the role she held in 1997 in Alejandro Amenábar’s film, Open Your Eyes, in this Cameron Crowe remake, opposite Tom Cruise.
2006: BANDIDAS
This comedy by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, whose screenplay is by Luc Besson, is certainly a big turnip but it will bring in more than 18 million dollars in revenue.
2008: VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
Thanks to this excellent Woody Allen film, in 2009 she became the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar. Consecration!
2011: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Faced with Johnny Depp, Penélope goes on board for Rob Marshall but her sister Mónica has to serve as her understudy because she is pregnant with her first child.
2018: EVERYBODY KNOWS
In this psychological thriller by Iranian Asghar Farhadi, Penélope once again gives the line to her husband, for the best.
2021: MADRES PARALELAS Thanks to her role in this eighth film with Pedro Almodóvar, Penélope obtains the Volpi Cup (best female interpretation) at the Venice Film Festival.
2022: 355In this spy film by Simon Kinberg, Penélope forms a shock team with Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger…
A committed woman
Very early in her career, the actress demonstrated that she was not just a glossy beauty, detached from the realities of the world. She notably met Mother Teresa and became involved with her foundations in India. In 2012, she also became the ambassador for the fight against breast cancer. A commitment that will be followed by another, since the same year she defends animals by posing for Peta. Penélope is also committed to fighting the illiteracy of young girls and sexual harassment. She has been involved in the Time’s Up movement in cinema since 2018 but does not hesitate to say and repeat that the #MeToo movement must be used to change things in all areas and for all women, not just in entertainment!
But it was his first role, in Jamon, Jamon, by Bigas Luna, which would explode his career and his popularity. Her sublime curves, which she reveals in the film, propel her to the rank of sex symbol and are noticed by a certain… AlmodÓvar. When the director calls her to audition for Kika, she still lives with her parents and initially believes in a hoax. He will find her too young for the role but will not forget her face or her number. Five years later, the actress finally realizes her dream in En Flesh et en os. Since then, Penélope has become her hero’s faithful friend and muse. The roles he offers her are settings. When All About My Mother won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2000,
Penélope tried her hand at blond to embody her friend Donatella Versace.
A global icon of glamor
Penélope’s beauty and Latin charisma attract brands as prestigious as Lancôme, for which she embodies the Trésor perfume, and Chanel, of which she has been one of the ambassadors since 2018. She promotes in particular the Cruise collections of the famous French brand. On screen, she transformed into a blonde and played Donatella Versace in the series American Crime Story – Versace, in 2018. Penélope has also been one of the faces of L’Oréal since 2006 and she even launched, with her sister Mónica, her own clothing line for Mango in 2009. She was finally the star of the Campari calendar in 2013.
Hollywood is beginning to take an interest in this fatal beauty as gifted to move as to seduce. She then crosses the Atlantic and will crack some of the most highly rated male representatives of US cinema, Tom Cruise in the lead. However, we cannot say that America brings him his best roles. Penélope admits it easily. But the brunette may be a strong head, she’s a chic girl. Don’t count on her to spit in the soup. His strength is that he never completely abandoned auteur cinema, or at least that of cutting-edge directors. She can play in the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: the Fountain of Youth as in a fi lm by the Iranian Asghar Farhadi or the French Olivier Assayas. She learned English, of course, but also some basic Farsi. Those who work with her are full of praise for her, and not just during promotions. It’s not for nothing that she is nicknamed “grandma” or “mama” on set: Pé is really nice and she didn’t wait for the concept of benevolence to be fashionable to apply it. Mama, she is also down to her fingertips since the birth of Leonardo, 10 years old, and Luna, 8 years old. The family is now her priority and, even if it means touring less – but no less well – she devotes herself to it thoroughly and in the old fashioned way, please. No question of watering his children with screens. At home, we do our homework on paper, not on a computer, and social networks are not about to see the Cruz-Bardem kids arrive. Their illustrious mother is certainly present there, but only for the promotion, and does not appreciate them more than that. “It’s incredible that the nipple of the Madres Paralelas poster was removed from Instagram for a few hours while posts of sometimes unheard-of violence are allowed to run,” she swung in Le Point in November. “It still shows how crazy our society has become, dictated by a completely stupid pseudo-good-thinking.” Did you say woman of character?
She tested a few actors before landing…
1991-1998 Nacho Cano
2001-2004 Tom Cruise
2004 Nicolas Cage
2005-2006 Matthew McConaughey
“I never fell in love while I was working. It always happened afterwards. A friendly relationship is born, which sometimes in a few months turns into something else. But you never know what will happen”, swore Penélope in Point de Vue, in 2008.
Yet the actress has often shared love stories with her play partners. Her first known lover is
Nacho Cano, one of the musicians of Mecano, with whom she turns in a clip of the group. Then she will capsize Tom Cruise, excuse the little, met on the set of Vanilla Sky but she will leave him, not really motivated by the idea of converting to Scientology, among other differences. Some will however reproach him for having stolen the actor from his wife Nicole Kidman. Then come rumors of an affair with Matt Damon, Orlando Bloom and Nicolas Cage, then finally a story with Matthew McConaughey, whom she met on the set of Sahara, whom she will also end up leaving.
Javier Bardem, the man of her life
Since 2007, Penélope has been making perfect love with Javier Bardem. They met in 1992 on the set of his first film, Jamón, Jamón, and crossed paths several times but ended up succumbing to each other on the set of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, by Woody Allen. The two actors kept their love secret for as long as possible and said yes to each other far from the flashes in front of their relatives in the Bahamas, in 2010. “I have wanted to be a mother since I was little. When I see a baby in the street, even if I don’t know the family, I’m going to give him a hug”, confided the Latin beauty to Elle in November 2021. With Javier, his wish came true: Leonardo was born in Los Angeles in 2011 and Luna in Madrid in 2013.
See also:
Louise Monteil