Penelope Cruz Biography And Filmography:

With her animated dark eyes, flowing brown hair and faultless dark skin, Penelope Cruz shot on the scene as a young teen girl showing an element of sexual innocence and a elegance for passion and nudity as the sexy star in Bigas Lunas' American art-house hit "Jamon Jamon" (1992). She cemented her celebrity status as a expanding star playing the virgin Luz in Ferdinand Trueba's 1994 Oscar winning "Belle Epoch.” Born in Madrid Spain, Penelope Cruz started studying dance and theatre as a young teen girl. At age fourteen, she tried out for a talent agent who hired her on the spot. Within two years, she had leaped to the big screen in "El Laberinto Griego/The Greek Labyrinth" (1992) before her breakthrough in "Jamon Jamon.”

As a growing star in her native Spain, Cruz had the chance to work with top directors and played numerous roles ranging from the Virgin Mary in "Per Amore, Solo per amore/For Love, Only for Love" (1993) to a medieval bride in "Celestina" (1996) to a pregnant prostitute in Pedro Almodovar's "Live Flesh" (1997) to the supportive girlfriend of a man disfigured in car accident in Alejandro Amenabar's "Open Your Eyes" (1998). 

She joined with Trueba and Almodovar for two her best screen performances to date. allegedly based on a true incident, Trueba's "The Girl of My Dreams/La Nina de tus ojos" (1998) allowed the actress to pay tribute to her grandmother in her role of an Adalusian cabaret singer trapped in Nazi Germany who gets the attention of party line minister Josef Goebbels. Almodovar once again had her playing a woman with child in the Cannes favorite "Todo sobre mi madre/All About My Mother" (1999) although this role in a clever bit of sarcasm, the delicate beauty played a Catholic nun.

Trying to expand her career opportunities, Cruz started acting in English in the British miniseries "Framed" (1993). She then appeared as the friendly mentor of an Irish governess in the period drama "Talk of Angels" (1998) and gave her shining looks to the unappreciated role of the Mexican girlfriend of Billy Crudup's cattle rancher in Stephen Frears' "The Hi-Lo Country" with Patricia Arquette (1998). Cruz also played a academic bartender who grabs the attention of Scotsman Douglas Henshall in the fantasy romantic comedy "The Man with Rain in His Shoe" (1998). The actress' position as a rising international star was achived when she took the female lead opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's screen version of "All the Pretty Horses" and the lead as a South American chef dealing with her recent success when she gets a television show in the United States in the comedy "Woman on Top" (both 2000).

Cruz would soon move up in Hollywood with roles as sexy and exotic types in "Blow" (2001) with Johnny Depp and "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (2001) with Nicolas Cage and Christian Bale, but it would be a role opposite superstar Tom Cruise, both on screen and in real life, that would send the actress to the top of Hollywood. After being cast as Tom Cruise's romantic love interest Sofia in "Vanilla Sky" featuring Cameron Diaz (2001), writer-director Cameron Crowe's interesting but slow Americanized reworking of "Open Your Eyes", Cruz started on a highly public romantic relationship with her world famous sexy man Tom Cruise, shortly after his famous and nasty separation from Nicole Kidman. 

The couple was shot to the front of the headlines, and Cruz had became a celebrity. Her exposure did not instantly turn into more movie roles, but in 2002 she appeared briefly in the good-natured but average comedy "Waking Up In Reno" opposite Billy Bob Thornton, and in 2003 she gave a great performance as Chloe, a mental patient who believes she talks with demons and starts to suck her former analyst (Halle Berry) into her shadowy world in the absurd thriller "Gothika." She then played oppisite Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend in the wartime drama "Head in the Clouds" (2004) as a bohemian drawn into a strange ménage.

Penelope was then cast in the role of Eva Rojas, the lover of explorer Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) in "Sahara" (2005), the Paramount Pictures edition of Clive Cussler's best selling adventure book, and curiosity in the film was fueled by the private romance between Cruz and her leading man. Cruz then gave her best performance of her career in “Volver” (2006), portraying a energetic and caring mother who does everything possible to help her daughter (Yohana Cobo) when her deadbeat looser of a husband (Antonio de la Torre) tries to sexually assault the young girl and is killed as a result. Directed by old friend Pedro Almodovar, “Volver” proved to be a blockbuster film for Penelope Cruz, allowing her to finally play a real woman instead of girls still coming of age and very young. 

Thanks to Almodovar’s classically powerful characterizations, the actress was brilliant in the demanding role and generated Oscar nominations when the movie hit the United States after becoming a marvel at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. The media attention began to heat up, leading to a Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama, as well as a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. Cruz then received her first Academy Award nomination, joining the likes of Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet in the Best Actress category.

• Also Credited As:
  Penelope Cruz
• Born:
  on 04/28/1974 in Madrid, Spain
• Job Titles:
  Actor, TV host, Ballet dancer, Model

Family

• Brother: Eduardo Cruz Jr. born 1985
• Father: Eduardo Cruz.
• Mother: Encarna Cruz. manages Cruz's business affairs
• Sister: Monica Cruz. born 1977; was a professional dancer; left her dancing career and achieved fame in the youth TV show "Un Paso Adelante"

Significant Others

• Companion: Enrique Sarasola. competed in the Olympics; together from  1997 to 1998
• Companion: Javier Bardem. rumored to be dating as of summer 2007
• Companion: Matthew McConaughey. actor; met on the set of “Sahara”; began dating spring 2004; split June 2006
• Companion: Orlando Bloom. Rumored to be dating in fall of 2006
• Companion: Tom Cruise. worked on "Vanilla Sky"; went public with relationship in July 2001; Split in January 2004
• Companion: Tomas Obermaier. Czech; became involved during filming of "La Nina de tus Ojos/The Girl of Your Dreams"; had two-and-a-half-year relationship c. 1998 to c. 2000

Education

• Conservatorio Nacional, Madrid, Spain, classical ballet

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