f
being good-looking were a criminal offense, they'd lock Penélope
Cruz up and throw away the key. Fortunately for Cruz, she's only
breaking hearts, not laws. But what is it about this sultry, Spanish
ingénue that makes her so intriguing? Perhaps it's her ability to exude a
savvy confidence while simultaneously seeming shy and vulnerable, or her
sophisticated poise combined with her down-to-earth approachability.
Whatever her secret is, it's working like a charm."She can actually stop traffic," says Woman on Top producer Alan Poul. "When you see her in motion, you can't help but stare." Her Vanilla Sky director Cameron Crowe joins the chorus of her praises proclaiming, "She has the ability to create fire with any object or moving thing." With endorsements like that, it's no wonder she snagged one of the worlds' most eligible
Born in Madrid, Spain on April 28, 1974 to Eduardo, an auto mechanic and
retailer and Encarna, a hairdresser, Penélope, or "Pe" as she
is nicknamed, is the eldest of three children. An overly energetic child,
Cruz's parents enrolled her in ballet classes at the age of four to help
her channel some of that energy. Cruz went on to study classical ballet at
Spain's National Conservatory, as well as Spanish ballet and jazz dance
with a series of other prestigious teachers. By the time she was a
teenager, Cruz's eye-catching looks landed her appearances on a variety of
Spanish television shows and music videos.In 1991, Cruz made her debut on the Spanish silver screen in El laberinto griego. The following, year at the age of 17, she raised a lot more than just eyebrows in the sexually-charged satire Jamón, jamón. Almost overnight Cruz became the object of fantasy and the center of far more attention than she wanted. In an attempt to tone down her sex symbol image, Cruz chopped off her chestnut locks and turned down any roles that involved eroticism, nudity or love scenes while she waited for the perception of her to change. In choosing her roles carefully, Cruz became a mainstay of Spanish cinema with roles in popular films including La Celestina, Alegra ma non troppo and Belle Epoque, the 1994 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. In what proved to be the type of good fortune careers are made of, Cruz went on to become a favorite actress of famed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who directed her in Abre los ojos ("Open your Eyes"), Carne trémula ("Live Flesh") and 1999's critically hailed Todo sobre mi madre ("All About My Mother"), which also took home the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Almodovar, who previously made a star out of fellow Spaniard Antonio Banderas by casting him in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, had this to say about his one-time muse: "She's a very mysterious woman. It's that myth that makes her complex. Sometimes she is like a saint, but she has a lot of
curiosity
about very dark things. She can find anything inside of her."Cruz's popularity in her native Spain continued to soar and in 1999 she earned a Best Actress Goya for her role in La Niña de Tus Ojos ("The Girl of Your Dreams"). The following year she crossed the Atlantic making her U.S. screen debut in The Hi-Lo Country opposite Woody Harrelson and Billy Crudup. The ever-philanthropic Cruz donated her entire paycheck from that film to Mother Teresa's Children's Sanctuary in Calcutta, India where she had briefly volunteered a few years
earlier. Giving back to those less fortunate is a top priority for Cruz who, together with other Spanish entertainers, supports a privately-run charity called the Sabera Foundation. Through the foundation Cruz and her friends have set up a home, a school, and a clinic for homeless girls and people afflicted with tuberculosis in Calcutta.
In early 2000, though a newcomer to Hollywood at the time and barely known to American audiences, Cruz emerged as a rising star with her performance as a captivatingly beautiful TV chef with magical recipes in the romantic comedy Women on Top. Within months the actress went from
relative obscurity to a spot on People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful" list. She immediately followed that up with starring roles in three high-profile films.
In All the Pretty Horses,
directed by actor/writer/director Billy
Bob Thornton, Cruz played a wealthy rancher's daughter who falls in
love with a rugged ranch hand played by Matt
Damon. Blow director Ted
Demme cast her as a mean-spirited foul mouthed, drug addicted dealer's
wife opposite Johnny Depp, and earlier this year Cruz portrayed a Greek
woman who wins the heart of an Italian soldier played by Nicolas
Cage in the romantic WWII drama Captain
Corelli's Mandolin.This month, the in-demand actress stars in Vanilla Sky, writer/director Cameron Crowe's highly anticipated American adaptation of the aforementioned Spanish film, Abre los ojos, in which Cruz reprises her role from the original. Filmed in Los Angeles and New York, Vanilla Sky features Tom Cruise as a womanizer who breaks one heart too many and finds himself the victim of a suicidal, jilted ex-lover who drives them both into a tree. The accident leaves him disfigured and despondent. After his doctor informs him they'll be able to reconstruct his face and his best friend's girlfriend confesses her feelings of love for him, his life begins to take an interesting turn, proving that things aren't always what they seem. The film co-stars Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell and Jason Lee.
Though fiercely connected to her Spanish roots, Cruz seems to be adapting to the L.A. lifestyle quite easily. She converted to vegetarianism during the filming of All the Pretty Horses and quit smoking earlier this year. Not without at least one vice, Cruz's penchant for French fries remains.
The one thing she has yet to adjust to is the relentless gossip mill that accompanies celebrity. When asked about the swirl of rumors that a real-life romance with Matt Damon during the filming of "Horses" was the mitigating factor in his break-up with long-time girlfriend Winona Ryder, and that she and Cage were also rumored to have rendezvoused off-screen during
"Mandolin," Cruz responded: "I have no idea what you're talking about.
Because we have this job we are to say to everybody what we do, or with whom we sleep?