Profile: Penelope Cruz
Full Name: Penelope Cruz Sánchez
Birth Date: April 28, 1974
Birth Place: Madrid, Spain
Height: 5' 6"
Quote: "The most difficult thing in the world is to start a career known only for your looks, and then to try to become a serious actress. No one will take you seriously once you are known as the pretty woman."
Penelope Cruz Biography
The eldest daughter of a hairdresser and an auto mechanic, growing up in Madrid, Spain, Penelope Cruz didn't want the normal pretty pony or a pretty stud, she instead dreamed of swans and nutcrackers and handsome princes! She further studied classical ballet at the National Conservatory for nine years. Cruz worked steadily in Spanish cinema from her 1991 debut in El Laberinto Griego (Greek Labyrinth), for the next seven years.
Cruz also made a brief and forgettable trip to the American shores, and accepted a role in a 1993 telepic, Framed, featuring Timothy Dalton. And then in Belle Époque, which won a 1994 foreign film Oscar. She then played what she deemed "the ugly woman" in Live Flesh and in Mother (1999), in which Cruz depicted a nun impregnated by a transvestite. She filmed La Niña de Tus Ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams), a role that would earn her a 1999 Best Actress Goya. She also appeared in the Hollywood feature, The Hi-Lo Country, with Woody Harrelson and Billy Crudup.
Like any starlet, Cruz ran right out and completely spent all of her first official Tinseltown paycheck. Unlike any starlet, however, she donated those earnings to Mother Theresa's children's sanctuary in Calcutta, India, where she had briefly volunteered. It was Cruz's physical beauty that secured her next upcoming major motion picture outing, as Johnny Depp's drug-addicted wife, in Blow (2001). She's spent the beginning of the new millennium in Greece as Nicolas Cage and Christian Bale vie for her affections in Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Meanwhile, her name has been paired with the other world-famous Cruise (Tom, but of course) to complete director-screenwriter Cameron Crowe's next pic, Vanilla Sky.
Penelope Cruz Filmography
Chromophobia (2005)
Bandidas (2005)
Sahara (2005)--Eva Rojas
Noel (2004)
Head in the Clouds (2004)--Mia
Non ti muovere (aka Don't Move) (2004)--Italia
Gothika (2003)--Chloe
Fanfan la tulipe (2003)--Adeline La Franchise
Masked & Anonymous (2003)--Pagan Lace
Waking Up in Reno (2002)--Brenda
Vanilla Sky (2001)--Sofia
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001)--Pelagia
Blow (2001)--Mirtha Jung
All the Pretty Horses (2000)--Alejandra de la Rocha
Woman on Top (1999)--Isabella Oliveira
Volavérunt (1999)--Pepita Tudó
Todo sobre mi madre (1999)--Sister Rosa
The Hi-Lo Country (1998)--Josepha O'Neil
Niña de tus ojos, La (1998)--Macarena Granada
Talk of Angels (1998)--Pilar
Twice Upon a Yesterday (1998)--Louise
Don Juan (1998)--Mathurine
Abre los ojos (1997)--Sofía (aka Open Your Eyes)
Carne trémula (1997)--Isabel (aka Live Flesh)
Et Hjørne af paradis (1997)--Doña Helena (aka A Corner of Paradise)
El Amor perjudica seriamente la salud (1996)--Diana (aka Love Can Seriously
Damage Your Health)
Framed (1996) (as Penelope Cruz Sánchez)
Más que amor, frenesí (1996) (aka Not Love, Just Frenzy)
La Celestina (1996)--Melibea
Brujas (1996)--Patricia
Entre rojas (1994)--Lucía
Todo es mentira (1994)--Lucía (aka It's All Lies)
Alegre ma non troppo (1994)--Salomé
Per amore, solo per amore (1993)--Mary (aka For Love, Only for Love)
La Ribelle (1993)--Enza (aka The Rebel)
Jamón, jamón (1992)--Silvia
Belle époque (1992)--Luz (aka The Age of Beauty)
Framed (1992) (TV)--Lola Del Moreno
El Laberinto griego (1991)--Elise (aka The Greek Labyrinth)
La Quinta Marcha (1990) TV Series--Host
Penelope Cruz Links
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