Issue: November 2009

Lost in Translation

Penelope Cruz has acted in more than 40 films over the course of 17 years - and won an Oscar - but she has yet to have a major American blockbuster. Will this month's Nine be her first?

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BY BRET LOVE —

THERE'S A LONGSTANDING HOLLYWOOD superstition that winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is the career kiss of death. Mira Sorvino has never rivaled her winning role in Mighty Aphrodite, Catherine Zeta-Jones hasn't had a big hit since Chicago, and Renee Zellweger has watched her movies tank consistently since Cold Mountain.

But, for better or worse, Penelope Cruz doesn't need to worry about the so-called "Oscar curse." Before the 2009 win for her role as mentally unstable artist Maria Elena in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the actress known as the "Spanish Enchantress" had never appeared in anything resembling a box office blockbuster - which is a fairly impressive feat when you consider how many high-profile roles she's managed to land opposite A-list stars like Matt Damon (All The Pretty Horses, 2000), Johnny Depp (Blow, 2001), Nicolas Cage (Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 2001), Tom Cruise (Vanilla Sky, 2001) and Matthew McConaughey (Sahara, 2005). The fact is, despite stellar starring roles in numerous foreign films, Cruz is perhaps best known in the US for her relationships with her leading men, including Cruise, McConaughey and current beau Javier Bardem.

Where other actresses have had to worry about maintaining momentum in the wake of winning Oscar gold, the 35-year-old Cruz approaches the Nov. 25 release of the eagerly anticipated Nine simply looking for a Hollywood hit in which she doesn't appear as the voice of a crime-fighting guinea pig (see: last summer's kiddie flick G-Force … or, better yet, don't). Yet Cruz herself doesn't seem all that concerned with box office returns. "When I started," she says, "my biggest aspiration was just to be able to be an actress with work. The best situation I could imagine was to be able to choose what I wanted to do. That counts more for me than the concept of stardom."

BORN PENÉLOPE CRUZ SÁNCHEZ IN MADRID, she began her career as a ballet dancer with Spain's National Conservatory before besting 300 other girls in a talent agency audition at the age of 15. Roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos led to film acting, including a role in 1992's Belle Epoque. But it was her work with Spanish indie auteur Pedro Almodóvar that established Cruz's thespian cred in Hollywood.

"I met Pedro when I was 18 and I was too young for the script that he was writing," she says. "But he told me, 'I will write something else for you,' and now we've made four films together. We became friends from the beginning and know each other really well. We share a lot of our lives with each other, and I count him as one of my closest friends."

That friendship has produced some of the best work of their respective careers, including 1998's Live Flesh, 1999's All About My Mother (which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film), 2006's Volver (for which Cruz earned her first Oscar nomination) and their latest collaboration, Broken Embraces, which was nominated for a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released next month.

Broken Embraces casts Cruz as Lena, an aspiring actress who suddenly finds herself the muse for visionary director Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar). Though the film noir-style story of passion, jealousy, obsession and guilt is a work of fiction, it's not difficult to imagine the loving connection between Lena and Mateo mirroring the one between Penelope and her mentor, Almodóvar.

"It is a very different type of relationship," Cruz says, noting the romantic nature of Lena and Mateo's partnership. "But I used a lot of my relationship with Pedro in playing the role. Emotionally, he is somebody that I connect with, somebody I care about. A lot of times when we were rehearsing, Pedro would play Lluís' role, and when he and I were acting together it helped me understand our relationship."

Cruz readily admits that this connection between them allows Almodóvar to bring out her peak performances. "I think it's because he's very specific and very honest, and he sees everything," she says. "On and off the set, you cannot lie to him, and I know he can't lie to me either. The fact that we're close friends does not mean that he's less demanding. I always feel the same butterflies while working with him. I cannot bear to have him go home disappointed. I always want to feel that I am giving 100%, one time after another."

But Cruz has also proven her abilities when working with other directors. After all, Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque won a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and she was widely praised for her work in director Alejandro Amenábar's Abre Los Ojos (remade by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky, in which she played the same role). So why can't Hollywood filmmakers seem to find projects that better showcase Cruz's talents?

She rejects outright the notion that Hollywood studios have failed to provide the same quality opportunities she's gotten overseas. "I think it would sound ungrateful if I said that the work in America was less interesting than my European work," she says. "I feel that as an actress from Spain who once spoke very little English, I've gotten to work with a lot of amazing people in America. I've never felt like I had difficulty because I never expected this to happen, since it never happened to an actress from my country. The doors were much more closed years ago, so I was very grateful that they kept giving me opportunities."

But Almodóvar sees things differently. "Hollywood doesn't take risks with actors," he told London's Telegraph. "They're not that rich in female characters either. I have the advantage that I know Penelope very well as a friend. She has such faith in me, so I can take more risks, bring out those unseen Penelopes that other directors wouldn't dare to conceive. She is the perfect material that I can shape into all the different women I can imagine … and [Lena] is the most difficult role she has played in all her career."

Indeed, while critical reaction to Broken Embraces at the Toronto Film Festival was mixed, Cruz's performance was universally praised, with some people predicting another Oscar nod. But first, there's the matter of Nine, Chicago director Rob Marshall's film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. Based on Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8½, the story follows a director (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) struggling during a mid-life crisis, juggling dynamic relationships with the myriad women in his life. With a remarkable cast that also includes Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard and Kate Hudson, the film is the closest thing this year's awards season has to a sure thing - not to mention Cruz's best chance yet for a bona fide Hollywood hit.

Of the film, Cruz says, "It was a long shoot with a lot of preparation time, but I loved it because I've always wanted to do a musical. I loved the feeling of going back to dancing five hours a day and the challenge of having to sing and be completely vulnerable. I think we were all caught off guard by it, but we had a very supportive team. We were all together all the time during the training part. Singing, acting, choreography, dancing … we would do classes all day long."

Adding to the shoot's allure was the opportunity for Cruz to act alongside one of her idols, Sophia Loren, who worked with the legendary Fellini on Boccaccio '70. "8½ is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it felt like Fellini was very present on the set," she says. "Our movie was different because it was a musical, but Sophia knew Fellini and worked with [8½ star] Marcello Mastroianni many times and would share stories about that era and those amazing people."

With Nine hitting theaters this month and Broken Embraces following closely behind, all that remains is to wait and watch the box office receipts come in. But Cruz doesn't seem all that concerned with commercial success (or lack thereof). For her, getting the chance to do what she loves is what's important.