Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born 28 April 1974) is a Spanish actress who performs in both Spanish and English-language films. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, three Goya Awards and a David di Donatello.
Cruz made her acting debut on television at age 16, and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón Jamón (1992). Her subsequent roles include Belle Époque (1992), Open Your Eyes (1997), Don Juan (1998), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000) and Woman on Top (2000). She has performed in seven films directed by Pedro Almodóvar: Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006), Broken Embraces (2009), I'm So Excited! (2013), Pain and Glory (2019), and Parallel Mothers (2021). She also produced several films she performed in, including Ma Ma (2015) and On the Fringe (2022).
For her role in Woody Allen's romantic drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Cruz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated for Academy Awards for Volver (2006), Nine (2009), and Parallel Mothers (2021). Her other films include Vanilla Sky (2001), Blow (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Zoolander 2 (2016), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Everybody Knows (2018), Official Competition (2022), L'immensità (2022), Ferrari (2023), The Invite (2026) and La bola negra (2026). On television, she portrayed Donatella Versace in the FX miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Cruz has also modelled for Mango, Ralph Lauren and L'Oréal, and designed clothing for Mango with her younger sister Mónica Cruz. She has been a brand ambassador for Chanel since 2018.
Early life Cruz was born on 28 April 1974 in Alcobendas, Spain, to Encarna Sánchez, an Andalusian hairdresser, and Eduardo Cruz, an Extremaduran car mechanic. Her sister Mónica is also an actress, and her brother is a singer and composer. She also has a paternal half-sister. She was raised Roman Catholic. In her childhood, Cruz focused on dance. She studied classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory. She trained in Spanish ballet for three years and in theatre for four years at Cristina Rota's school. Cruz later said that ballet gave her discipline which proved important in her acting career. When Cruz became a cinephile at ten or eleven, her father bought a Betamax machine, which was rare in her neighborhood at the time.
Cruz became interested in acting as a teenager after seeing the film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. She did casting calls for an agent but was rejected several times for being too young. Ultimately, the agent signed her. At age 15, Cruz won an audition at a talent agency at which more than 300 other girls had applied. In 1999, Katrina Bayonas, Cruz's agent, commented, "She was absolutely magic [at the audition]. It was obvious there was something ... impressive about this kid.... She was ... green, but there was a presence. There was just something coming from within."
Her father, Eduardo, died at his home in Spain in 2015, aged 62, from a heart attack.
Career 1989–1997: Early work In 1989, 15-year-old Cruz made her acting debut in a music video for the Spanish pop group Mecano's song "La Fuerza del Destino". Between 1990 and 1991, she hosted the Spanish TV channel Telecinco's talk show La Quinta Marcha, a programme that was hosted by teenagers, aimed at a teenage audience. She also played in the "Elle et lui" episode of an erotic French TV series called Série rose in 1991, where she appeared nude. In 1991, Cruz made her feature film debut as the lead female role in the comedy drama art house film Jamón, jamón. In the film, she portrayed Silvia, a young woman who is expecting her first child with a man whose mother does not approve of the relationship and attempts to sabotage it by paying Javier Bardem's character to seduce her. People magazine noted that after Cruz appeared topless in the film, she became "a major sex symbol". In an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News in 1999, Cruz commented that "it was a great part, but...I wasn't really ready for the nudity. [...] But I have no regrets because I wanted to start working and it changed my life." Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes noted that Cruz "became an overnight sensation as much for her nude scenes as for her talent". When Rose asked Cruz if she was concerned about how she would be perceived after her role in the film, Cruz replied, "I just knew I had to do the complete opposite." Jamón, jamón received favorable reviews, with Chris Hicks of the Deseret News describing Cruz's portrayal of Silvia as "enchanting". Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert wrote "it stars actors of considerable physical appeal, most particularly Penélope Cruz as Silvia". For her performance, Cruz was nominated for a Spanish Actors Union Newcomer Award and a Goya Award for Best Actress. The same year she appeared in the Academy Award-winning Belle Époque as the virginal Luz. People magazine noted that Cruz's role as Luz showed that she was versatile.
From 1993 to 1996, Cruz appeared in ten Spanish and Italian films. At 20, she went to live in New York for two years at Christopher and Greenwich to study ballet and English between films. She recalls learning English "kind of late", previously knowing only the dialogue she had learned for the casting and the phrases "How are you?" and "Thank you".
In 1997, Cruz appeared in the Spanish comedy film Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health. She portrays Diana, a fan of the Beatles band member John Lennon; she tries unsuccessfully to meet him. Years later, after many failed relationships, Diana re-unites with an acquaintance under unusual circumstances. That same year, she appeared in the opening scene of Pedro Almodóvar's Live Flesh as a prostitute who gives birth on a bus and in Et hjørne af paradis (A Corner of Paradise) as Doña Helena. Cruz's final appearance in 1997 was the Amenabar-directed Spanish sci-fi drama, "Abre Los Ojos"/ Open Your Eyes. She plays Sofia, the love interest of Eduardo Noriega's lead character. Open Your Eyes received positive reviews, and was later remade by U.S. director Cameron Crowe as "Vanilla Sky" (who cast Cruz in the same role and Tom Cruise in Noriega's role), but "Open Your Eyes" was not commercially successful. Kevin N. Laforest of the Montreal Film Journal commented in his September 2002 review that Cruz "has been getting some really bad reviews for her recent American work, but I personally think that she's a more than decent actress, especially here, where she's charming, moving and always believable. [...] There's one shot in particular, where Cruz enters a room in a greenish glow, which is right out of Hitchcock's picture [Vertigo]."
1998–2000: Early American film roles In 1998, Cruz appeared in her first American film as Billy Crudup's consolation-prize Mexican girlfriend in Stephen Frears' western film The Hi-Lo Country. Cruz stated that she had difficulties understanding people speaking English while she was filming The Hi-Lo Country. The film was critically and commercially unsuccessful. Kevin Lally of the Film Journal International commented in his review for the film that "in an ironic casting twist, the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz [...] is much more appealing as Josepha [than in her previous roles]". For her performance in the film, she was nominated for an ALMA Award for Best Actress.
Also in 1998, Cruz appeared in Don Juan and the Spanish period drama The Girl of Your Dreams. In The Girl of Your Dreams (La niña de tus ojos), Cruz portrayed Macarena Granada, a singer who is in an on-and-off relationship with Antonio Resines's character Blas. They are part of a Francoist film troupe that travels from Spain during the Spanish Civil War to Nazi Germany for a joint production with UFA. Cruz's performance in the film was praised by film critics, with Jonathan Holloland of Variety magazine writing "if confirmation is still needed that Cruz is an actress first and a pretty face second, then here it is". A writer for Film4 commented that "Cruz herself is the inevitable focus of the film" but noted that overall the film "looks great". Cruz's role as Macarena has been viewed as her "largest role to date". For her performance, Cruz received a Goya Award and Spanish Actors' Union Award, and was nominated for a European Film Award. In 1999, Cruz worked with Almodóvar again in All About My Mother, playing Sister María Rosa Sanz, a pregnant nun with AIDS. The film received favorable reviews, and was commercially successful, grossing over $67 million worldwide, although it performed better at the box office internationally than domestically.
In 2000, she appeared in Woman on Top in the lead female role as Isabelle, a world-class chef who suffered from motion sickness since birth, her first American lead role. Lisa Nesselson of Variety magazine praised the performances of both Cruz and her co-star, Harold Perrineau, saying they "burst off the screen", and added that Cruz has a charming accent. BBC News film critic Jane Crowther said that "Cruz is wonderfully ditzy as the innocent abroad" but remarked that "it's Harold Perrineau Jr as Monica who pockets the movie". Annlee Ellingson of Box Office magazine wrote "Cruz is stunning in the role—innocent and vulnerable yet possessing a mature grace and determined strength, all while sizzling with unchecked sensuality." Also in 2000, she played Alejandra Villarreal, who is Matt Damon's love interest in Billy Bob Thornton's film adaptation of the western bestselling novel All the Pretty Horses. Susan Stark of The Detroit News commented that in the film Thornton was able to guide Damon, Henry Thomas and Cruz to "their most impressive performances in a major movie yet". However, Bob Longigo of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was less enthusiastic about Cruz's and Damon's performance, saying that their "resulting onscreen chemistry would hardly warm a can of beans".
2001–2005: Breakthrough 2001 marked a turning point year when Cruz starred in the feature films Vanilla Sky and Blow. In Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe's interpretation of Open Your Eyes, she played Sofia Serrano, the love interest of Tom Cruise's character. The film received mixed reviews, but made $200 million worldwide. Her performance was well received by critics, with BBC film critic Brandon Graydon saying that Cruz "is an enchanting screen presence", and Ethan Alter of the Film Journal International noting that Cruz and her co-star Cruise were "able to generate some actual chemistry". Her next film was Blow, adapted from Bruce Porter's 1993 book Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 million with the Medellín Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All. She had a supporting role as Mirtha Jung, the wife of Johnny Depp's character. The film received mixed reviews, but made $80 million worldwide. Nina Willdorf of the Boston Phoenix described Cruz as "multi-talented" and Mark Salvo of The Austin Chronicle wrote "I may be one of the last male holdouts to join the Cruz-Rules camp, but her tour de force performance here sucks you right in."