Who is Penélope Cruz?
Born on April 28, 1974 in Alcobendas, in the community of Madrid, to a hairdresser mother and a mechanic father, Eduardo -deceased in 2015-, Penélope Cruz began at a very young age classical dance lessons at the national conservatory of Spain. and theater. As a teenager, she decided on the profession of actress and went through the castings, with a determination that bore fruit: she appeared in a clip and in a Spanish TV show in 1989, before playing at 17 in an episode of a French erotic series Série rose.
A year later, spotted by the Spanish director José Buan Bigas Lunas in 1992, she got her first film role in Jambon Jambon. His role of the beautiful Silvia, topless, elevates him to the rank of sex symbol and launches his career. The proposals flow, which allows the sulphurous Penelope to select her roles. It can be found in particular from 1997 in the films of talented Spanish directors Alejandro Amenabar with Open Your Eyes and Pedro Almodovar with Tout sur ma mère (Best Director Award at Cannes in 1999). The actress was in demand across the Atlantic in 1998 when 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 Amour, piments et bossa nova, by Fina. Torres.
2001 marked a turning point in her career: the actress was chosen to star in two major American productions. In Vanilla Sky, (the American remake of Open Eyes by Pedro Almodovar in which the actress had played 4 years before) she is the companion of Hollywood star actor Tom Cruise, before playing the wife of Johnny Depp character 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 replies to Halle Berry in Gothika, by Mathieu Kassovitz (2003) then to Charlize Theron in We Were Free (2004). She then turns in a more authored film, A corps perdus, by (and with) Sergio Castellito.
From 2006, she returned to major American productions in Bandidas, which she co-staged with her friend Salma Hayek. The same year, director Pedro Almodovar called upon her again for Volver, which won her the Best Actress award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, as well as a Goya Award and a European Film Award. She also becomes the first Spanish actress to be nominated for an Oscar for cinema. In 2008, Woody Allen chose the beautiful Iberian to star in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, tale of a love triangle in which she plays Scarlett Johansson and her compatriot Javier Bardem. Her performance earned 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 took over from Kate Winslet in Lancôme's Trésor perfume advertising campaign and was chosen with her sister Monica from the fall to become the new face of the Swiss brand Vögele. In 2011, she played the daughter of Blackbeard in the fourth installment of Pirate des Caraïbes (La Fontaine de Jouvence). In the summer of 2012, she became Mario in the New Super Mario Bros game commercial, again accompanied by her sister.
On September 11, 2021, she won the prize for best female interpretation for her role in Madres Paralelas, during 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 split 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, got married in July 2010. On January 22, 2011, Penelope gives birth to a little Leonardo, nicknamed Leo. On July 22, 2013, the family grew with the birth of a baby girl named Luna.
