Who is Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid on 28 April 1974. Her career spans Spanish, American and Italian cinema. [1]
Training and early roles
She trained in acting with Cristina Rota. Juan Diego Botto recalls scene work on The Maids and Romeo and Juliet, while agent Katrina Bayonas met her through Caras nuevas. Acting classes and auditions preceded her first feature films. [5]
In 1992 she appeared alongside Javier Bardem in Bigas Luna’s Jamón, jamón and in Fernando Trueba’s Belle Époque. Alejandro Amenábar’s Open Your Eyes followed in 1997. These filmmakers offered different entry points into Spanish cinema during the 1990s. [6]
Trueba directed her again in The Girl of Your Dreams, released in 1998. The comedy follows a Spanish film crew working in Nazi Germany. Cruz’s performance earned the Goya for best leading actress, an important award in the opening phase of her career. [7]
Working with Pedro Almodóvar
Her first Almodóvar film was Live Flesh (1997), in which she played Isabel Plaza, beginning a professional collaboration that continued through different stages of their careers. [35]
In All About My Mother (1999), she played Sister Rosa in a cast led by Cecilia Roth. The story follows Manuela and the women she encounters in Barcelona, with Cruz contributing one of the central figures in the ensemble. [8]
Volver (2006) cast her as Raimunda, a mother facing a family crisis as secrets from the past return. Carmen Maura and Lola Dueñas played her mother and sister. The film combines drama, humour and family memory across several generations of women. [9]
In Broken Embraces (2009), she played Lena opposite Lluís Homar as a filmmaker. The narrative brings together a love affair, an accident and memories of a film, making performance and filmmaking part of the characters’ conflict. [10]
Pain and Glory (2019) cast her as Jacinta in the remembered life of filmmaker Salvador, played by Antonio Banderas. The story moves between childhood, relationships and artistic creation, with Cruz contributing to its portrait of family memory. [34]
Parallel Mothers, presented in 2021, paired her with Milena Smit. Janis and Ana meet in a maternity ward, and their relationship develops as their lives become intertwined. Almodóvar wrote and directed the drama about motherhood, emotional bonds and personal decisions. [11]
Hollywood and Italian cinema
Her American work included All the Pretty Horses (2000), Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Vanilla Sky (2001). She later appeared in the musical Nine (2009) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), both directed by Rob Marshall. [1]
She also built an Italian-language career. Sergio Castellitto’s Don’t Move earned her the David di Donatello for best actress in 2004. The award recognised her leading performance within Italian cinema, extending her career beyond Spanish- and English-language productions. [13]
She reunited with Castellitto for Twice Born (2012), scripted by the director and Margaret Mazzantini. Her character, Gemma, returns to Sarajevo with her son and revisits a family history shaped by war. Emile Hirsch also starred. [14]
In Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), she played María Elena, the former partner of Bardem’s painter. Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson completed the central cast. Cruz won the supporting actress Goya and, at the 2009 ceremony, the Academy Award in the same category. [15, 2]
Television and recent characters
The second American Crime Story instalment, about the assassination of Gianni Versace, cast her as Donatella Versace alongside Edgar Ramírez and Darren Criss. Tom Rob Smith wrote the series, with Ryan Murphy directing the opening episode. [19]
Official Competition, presented in Venice in 2021 and released in 2022, cast her as director Lola Cuevas. Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s comedy examines cinematic egos, with Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez playing actors put through her unconventional rehearsals. [20]
In Emanuele Crialese’s L’immensità (2022), she played Clara, a mother in 1970s Rome. The director highlighted her work with Luana Giuliani and the other young performers, who had no previous acting experience, in a story about identity and family relationships. [21]
Michael Mann directed her as Laura Ferrari in Ferrari (2023), alongside Adam Driver and Shailene Woodley. Set in 1957, the film connects Enzo Ferrari’s personal conflicts with the company’s difficulties and the Mille Miglia race. [22, 23]
In 2026 she appeared as Detective Myrna Malloy in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, alongside Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, continuing her involvement in American ensemble productions. [24, 25]
She also played Nené in Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La bola negra, presented in competition at Cannes in 2026. Connecting three periods and drawing on an unfinished Federico García Lorca work, the film also features Guitarricadelafuente, Lola Dueñas and Glenn Close. [26]
Producing and developing projects
In 2022 she partnered with The Mediapro Studio to launch Moonlyon, a production company developing fiction and nonfiction. [16]
She acted in and produced On the Fringe (2022), Juan Diego Botto’s feature directing debut, presented in Venice’s Orizzonti section. Produced with Álvaro Longoria and other partners, it interweaves lives affected by eviction and financial pressure. Olga Rodríguez co-wrote the screenplay. [27]
Awards and recognition
The 2006 Cannes best actress award was shared by all six actresses in Volver: Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo and Chus Lampreave. It recognised the performances of the ensemble. [12]
Her Oscar and BAFTA for Vicky Cristina Barcelona sit alongside Oscar nominations for Volver, Nine and Parallel Mothers. The latter performance also won the Volpi Cup in Venice in 2021. [16, 17]
Her Donatella Versace earned a 2018 Emmy nomination for supporting actress in a limited series or movie. That year she also received France’s honorary César, recognising her career rather than a single performance. [18, 28]
In September 2019 she received San Sebastián’s Donostia Award. Spain’s National Cinematography Prize followed in 2022, recognising her career and international standing. [29, 30]
Documentaries, conservation and fashion
She directed Soy uno entre cien mil, a Viceroy-produced documentary about childhood leukaemia. Its September 2016 presentation on El Hormiguero included an SMS fundraising appeal; Unoentrecienmil reported €103,000 raised to support a research grant. [31]
For Conservation International’s Nature Is Speaking, she voiced Water. The short film personifies the natural resource to communicate its importance to human life and ecosystems. Her contribution is one of audiovisual storytelling and environmental communication. [3]
Fashion is another strand of her public work. She starred in CHANEL’s Cruise 2018/19 campaign and joined Carla Simón for a CHANEL Connects conversation about filmmaking and personal experience, combining commercial and cultural collaborations alongside her film career. [32, 33]
