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Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28,
1974, in Madrid, Spain), better known as Penélope Cruz,
is a Golden Globe- and Academy Award-nominated Spanish
actress. Originally a dancer, she soon moved into
Spanish television, and since then she has appeared in a
string of films, in Spanish, English, French and
Italian.
Early life: Cruz was born in San Sebastián de
los Reyes, Madrid, Spain. Her parents are Eduardo Cruz,
a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a
toddler, she was already a compulsive performer,
re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement,
but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After
studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's
National Conservatory, she continued her training under
a series of prominent dancers.
At 15, however, she heeded her true
calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a
talent agency audition. She received three years of
Spanish Ballet training with Ángela Garrido. She also
had jazz dance training with Raúl Caballero and she
studied at Cristina Rota (mother of Juan Diego Botto)
school in Madrid. She speaks Spanish, English, French,
and Italian fluently.
Career: Cruz first achieved fame when she
appeared in the video clip La fuerza del destino for the
Spanish synthpop group Mecano. She later started a
relationship with Nacho Cano, a member of the group.
She was a TV presenter for the teen-oriented program La
Quinta Marcha. She also had early exposure in Série
Rose, a French erotic TV serial in which she played the
role of a blind prostitute.
Cruz's first major films were Jamón, jamón and Belle
Epoque, a film which won an Academy Award for Foreign
Language Film.
In 1997, she starred as Sofía Pangia, alongside Eduardo
Noriega in Abre los ojos, directed by Alejandro Amenábar,
and in 2000 she appeared with Matt Damon in All the
Pretty Horses. In 1999, she appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's
Todo sobre mi madre, which won an Academy Award for
Foreign Language Film. In early 2001, she appeared in
the film Vanilla Sky, the Hollywood remake of Abre los
ojos. She played the same part in both films.
One of Spain's foremost leading ladies of the 1990s, Penélope
Cruz has managed to make her mark with international
audiences as well. Born in Madrid on April 28, 1974,
Cruz was one of three children of a merchant and a
hairdresser. After years of intensive study in ballet
and jazz, she broke into acting in 1992. That year, she
had starring roles in Jamón Jamón and Belle Epoque,
two very disparate films. The former cast her as the
desperately poor daughter of a village prostitute, while
the latter featured her as one of four lusty daughters
of a wealthy man in pre-Franco Spain. Belle Epoque
proved to be a huge success, winning nine Goya Awards
(the Spanish equivalent of an Academy Award) and an
Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Its success gave Cruz a
dose of international recognition, and after starring in
a number of Spanish films, she enhanced this recognition
in 1997 with the Sundance entry Abre los Ojos (Open Your
Eyes). That same year, she had a brief but memorable
role in Pedro Almodóvar's Carne Trémula (Live Flesh).
In 1998, Cruz had her first starring role in an
English-language film, playing Billy Crudup's
Mexican-American love interest in Stephen Frears' The
Hi-Lo Country. She had another go at English later that
year in the Spanish-British romantic comedy Twice Upon a
Yesterday, which cast her as a Spanish barmaid living in
London. In 1999, she returned to Spain to collaborate
once again with Almodóvar on Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All
About My Mother), a wildly acclaimed film that premiered
at Cannes that year.
The next two years would prove to be a critical turning
point in both Cruz's personal and professional life,
with increasingly visible roles in large-scale Hollywood
productions as well as a developing relationship with
one Tinseltown's most popular leading men. Gaining
notice for her roles in All the Pretty Horses in 2000
and Blow the following year, it appeared as if Cruz's
career had suddenly kicked into overdrive. After
starring alongside Nicolas Cage in the underperforming
Captain Corelli's Mandolin in 2001, Cruz dove back into
familiar territory with director Cameron Crowe's remake
of Abre los Ojos, Vanilla Sky (2001). Developing a close
relationship with lead Tom Cruise as his much publicized
breakup with Nicole Kidman drew to a close, the pair
soon found themselves the center of considerable
paparazzi attention as they became Hollywood's hottest
new couple.
While "Cruz & Cruise" outlasted most
celebrity couplings born on movie sets -- even
generating wedding talk -- the duo went their separate
ways in 2004. Perhaps not coincidentally, Cruz's career
took a backseat to her paramour's while she was dating
him; between 2001 and 2004, most of her roles were
either minor ones in uncelebrated American indies
(Waking Up in Reno, Masked and Anonymous, Noel) or
meatier ones in foreign films that failed to gain
traction in the States (Fanfan la Tulipe, Don't Move,
Bandidas). Luckily, the actress rebounded with a
performance thought by many critics to be the best of
her career, when she re-teamed with one of her earliest
champions, Pedro Almodóvar, for his nostalgic,
bittersweet Volver in 2006. Warm, witty, and biting,
Cruz's performance kept her name in the running for many
year-end awards, even garnering her her first Oscar
nomination for Best Actress.
In 2006, Cruz received highly favourable reviews for her
performance in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver. She won a Best
Actress ensemble award at the Cannes Film Festival and
has been nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe
Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and BAFTA Award. She is
the first Spanish Actress to be nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a
Leading Role. |
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