| Penélope Cruz | |
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 Penélope Cruz in 2008 |
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| Born | Penélope Cruz Sánchez April 28, 1974 Alcobendas, Community of Madrid, Spain |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1992–present |
Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28, 1974), better known as Penélope Cruz, is a Spanish actress. She gathered critical acclaim as a young actress for films such as Jamón, jamón, The Girl of Your Dreams, and Belle Époque. She has also starred in several American films such as Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Blow, Vanilla Sky, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Nine. She is known for her work with acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, in Broken Embraces, Volver and All About My Mother.
Cruz has been awarded three Goya Awards, two European Film Awards, and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.[1] In 2009, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Goya, and a BAFTA for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She is Spain's first female Oscar winner and also becomes the sixth Hispanic person to win an Oscar after José Ferrer, Rita Moreno, Benicio del Toro (Puerto Rico), Anthony Quinn (Mexico), and fellow Spaniard Javier Bardem.[2][3] Cruz was nominated for her third Academy Award in 2010 for her role as Carla Albanese in the film version of the musical Nine. This nomination marked only the third time in the history of the Oscars where the winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress was nominated for Best Supporting Actress again in the following year (the other actresses to have achieved this were Estelle Parsons in 1967 and 1968 and Lee Grant in 1975 and 1976).[citation needed]
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Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Alcobendas, Community of Madrid, Spain, the daughter of Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser and personal manager, and Eduardo Cruz, a retailer and auto mechanic.[4][5] Cruz has a younger brother, Eduardo, who is a singer, and a younger sister, Mónica, who is also an actress.[6] In 2000 Cruz stated that as a child she would "throw myself on the floor and start kicking and breaking things when I didn't get my way."[7] Initially, Cruz focused on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years[6] at Spain's National Conservatory.[7] She received three years of Spanish Ballet training and four years of theater at Cristina Rota's New York school.[8] When Cruz was 13 she began having an interest in acting and began doing casting calls for the same agent, but was rejected multiple times.[9] Cruz commented on the experience that, "I was very extroverted as a kid. [...] I was studying when I was in high school at night, I was in ballet and I was doing castings. I looked for an agent and she sent me away three times because I was a little girl but I kept coming back. I'm still with her after all these years."[9] In 1989, at the age of 15, Cruz won an audition over more than 300 other girls at a talent agency.[7] In 1999, Katrina Bayonas, the agent who signed Cruz after her audition, commented, "She was absolutely magic [at the audition]. It was obvious there was something very impressive about this kid. [...] She was very green, but there was a presence. There was just something coming from within."[7]
Cruz first achieved fame when she appeared in the video for "La fuerza del destino" for the Spanish synthpop group Mecano. She later started a relationship with Nacho Cano, a member of the group.[10] A TV presenter for the teen-oriented program La Quinta Marcha,[5] she also had early exposure in Série Rose, an erotic French TV serial.[11] In one episode she played the role of a blind prostitute and in another played a young noblewoman pretending to be a young nobleman in a comedy of errors. She also directed Nacho Cano's video of "El waltz de los locos", in 1994.
Cruz's first major films were Jamón, jamón and Belle Époque, a film which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film; she was aged sixteen in her first film.[12] In 1997, she starred as Sofía Pangia, alongside Eduardo Noriega, in Open Your Eyes, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, while in 1999 she appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother, which also won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film. In 2000 she appeared with Matt Damon in All the Pretty Horses.
For Cruz, the early 2000s were a period of mediocre reviews and mixed commercial success. In late 2001, she appeared in the film Vanilla Sky, the Hollywood remake of Open Your Eyes. Returning to Europe, in 2004, Cruz learned Italian (she already spoke Spanish, French, and English) to star in the film Don't Move. She earned critical praise for her role and earned the coveted David di Donatello award, the Italian equivalent of the Oscar.
In 2006, she co-starred with Salma Hayek in the film Bandidas.[13] That same year, Cruz received highly favourable reviews for her performance in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver. She shared a Best Actress award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival with five of her co-stars,[1] and was nominated for the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the BAFTA Award, and the Academy Award for Best Actress in a leading role. The latter of these nominations made her the first Spanish actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.[14]
In 2008, Cruz appeared with Sir Ben Kingsley in fellow Spaniard Isabel Coixet's film Elegy, earning her critical praise for an English-speaking role. The film was based on the Philip Roth story The Dying Animal. She was nominated for a Golden Satellite award for her performance. Later that year, she starred in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona as María Elena, Javier Bardem's mentally unstable ex-wife. Her performance received wide critical praise. For the role, Cruz received her second Academy Award Nomination, and later won for Best Supporting Actress,[15] making her only the second Spanish actor to win an Academy Award, a year after her boyfriend, Javier Bardem, won for No Country for Old Men. She became the first Spanish actress to win an Academy Award, and one of the only actors besides Robert De Niro and Ingrid Bergman to win the Oscar for a role speaking two different languages. Besides the Oscar, Cruz won the BAFTA, the Independent Spirit Award, the National Board of Review Award, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She also earned Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for her role.
Cruz's next film was the kid-friendly animated film, G-Force, which was released to theaters in July 2009.[16] In the film, she voiced a gerbil spy named Juarez.[16] Cruz again collaborated with Pedro Almodóvar in his film Broken Embraces, released in the U.S. in November 2009. She was also featured in the film version of the musical Nine, along with other Oscar winners Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard. She earned her third Academy Award nomination in 2010 for this role. In 2010, Cruz will appear in the film Sex and the City 2, the sequel to the 2008 film, as a cameo role as Lydia.[17] In February 2010, it was reported that Cruz was in negotiations to appear in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film as an unspecified role.[18]
Cruz speaks four languages,[6] Spanish, Italian, French and English.[19] Cruz learned to speak Italian for her role in Don't Move.[6] Cruz has donated a considerable amount of money and time to charity. In addition to her work in Nepal, Cruz has volunteered in Uganda and India, where she spent a week working for Mother Teresa that included assisting in a leprosy clinic.[20] That trip had inspired Cruz, leading to her helping start a foundation to support homeless girls in India, where she personally sponsors two young women.[20] She was also inspired to donate her entire salary from her first Hollywood movie, The Hi-Lo Country, to help fund the late nun's mission.[20][21] Cruz has shown an interest in photography, and in the early 2000s she spent time in Nepal photographing Tibetan children for an exhibition that was attended by the Dalai Lama, as well as photographing some of the residents at the Pacific Lodge Boys' Home, most of whom are former gang members and recovering substance abusers.[20] Cruz commented, "these kids break my heart. I have to control myself not to cry. Not out of pity, but seeing how tricky life is and how hard it is to make the right choices."[20]
After appearing in Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, they had a three-year relationship which ended in January 2004.[22] During that time, she and Cruise were seen visiting several Church of Scientology locations in Hollywood, and there was published speculation that Cruise had convinced Cruz to join the church.[23] In April 2003, Cruz had filed a lawsuit against the Australian magazine New Idea for defamation over an article it published about her relationship with Cruise.[24] Cruz's lawyers claimed in a statement that "the proceedings state that the article contains a number of false and defamatory statements concerning Ms. Cruz" and she is seeking "substantial damages and is confident that legal proceedings will vindicate her reputation."[24] After filming Sahara in February 2005, she began dating actor Matthew McConaughey. In June 2006, they released a joint statement to People, saying that they "have decided to take time off as a couple" and that "due to busy work schedules and so much time apart" they mutually decided that "separating was the best thing to do at this time."[25] She has been dating actor Javier Bardem since 2007; the two appeared together in Jamón, jamón, Live Flesh and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.[26] In November 2009, when reports surfaced stating that Cruz and Bardem were engaged, Cruz responded by neither confirming nor denying the reports, explaining that, "I don't feel comfortable talking about my private life in public."[27]
In April 2007 Cruz, who was single at the time, stated that she would like to have children one day and she feels the need to adopt. "Of course I want to have kids," Cruz, told the Spanish edition of Marie Claire in its April issue. "I want to have my own kids, but also adopt. For a while I've had the feeling that my life won't be complete if I don't adopt".[28] In 2008, Cruz expressed her dislike towards media tabloids, describing them as being "disguising" and felt that aside from the false reports affecting her directing, that "this culture of gossip affects our society on a much deeper level, on an ethical level."[29] Cruz owns a house in Madrid that is near her families home[6] and another house in Los Angeles.[29][9] Although Cruz's parents are divorced, in 2008, she stated that she remains close to both parents and to her brother as well as having a "100 percent" bond with her younger sister.[9] Cruz was a vegetarian in her youth and has spoken out about bullfights.[9] Cruz, an animal lover, picked up a stray dog when filming Bandidas in Mexico and took it back to her Los Angles home.[9]
Cruz owns a clothing store in Madrid and designed a line of jewelry and handbags with her younger sister for a company in Japan.[6] In 2006 Cruz signed an exclusive contract to become the new spokesmodel for the French beauty company L'Oreal to promote products, such as L'Oreal Paris' hair-dye product Natural Match[30] and mascara products.[31] Cruz appears in both televisions and print ads for the company. She reportedly receives 2 million dollars a year for her work for the company.[7] Cruz has also appeared in print ads for the Barcelona-based fashion chain Mango[32] and had a contract with Ralph Lauren in 2001.[7][21] In May 2007, it was announced that Cruz and her sister would be designing a collection for Mango.[9] The collection, which is their second for the brand, was inspired by Brigitte Bardot and summers in St Tropez.[9] Cruz commented on the collection for Mango that, "It's been a really good collaboration because they're a great Spanish company and they give us a lot of [creative] freedom. My sister and I have a great time working on the designs."[9]
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Ondas Awards | Ondas Film Award | Best Acting (Mejor Interpretación) | Won |
| 2003 | Imagen Foundation Awards | Creative Achievement Award | None | Nominated |
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Penélope Cruz Sánchez, nicknamed simply Pe, is a Spanish actress. She was born April 28, 1974 in Madrid and named after a song by Joan Manuel Serrat
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