Penelope Cruz Interview - Penelope Cruz Quotes on Fashion, Work and Family

October 27, 2024

There are few women alive who can work a smoky eye better than Penélope Cruz. It's part of her, you can almost imagine Baby Penélope coming out of her mother's womb already smoldering.

Today, it's not just Penélope's eyes that are smoking. She arrives for breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge wearing silky black L'Wren Scott trousers with a matching sleeveless bow-necked blouse, topped with a black leather Bottega Veneta jacket. Her mane of brown hair is up in a jaunty pony. "I love L'Wren," she says with the comely spanish inflection that could quite conceivably sell death and taxes.

Given that Penélope's only plan after the interview is to head home to play with her one-year-old son, Leonardo it's safe to say she has dressed for the occasion–her "double life" as she calls it. She will do the same a few days later, swanning into the Academy Awards in Grace Kelly–worthy smoky-blue Armani Privé. Of her red-carpet choices, she says ràpido, "All I look for is to be able to breathe!"

What is not commonly known about Penélope Cruz–international beacon of beauty, movie star, muse to many, from Pedro Almodóvar to Woody Allen, and Hollywood heartbreaker–is that she's a mischievous sort. "One thing that I am proud of: I am really capable of laughing at myself," she says. She's bossy too. "I think you want a Coke, right," she says, which means she wants a Coke. "And you definitely want more turkey baconnnn.

She launches into a story of shooting her first film after having Leonardo, Allen's To Rome with Love. (She won an Oscar for her deliciously unhinged role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.) "I love being around Woody. Watching him direct, and sometimes," she whispers, "he falls asleep while they are lighting the next shot. I take pictures of him because he picks the strangest positions. I always think he is going to fall off his chair." But it's when he's awake that Penélope says she loves Allen the most: "That whole shoot I laughed so hard."

The actress, 38, has completed only one other film–Twice Born, a drama about a single mother raising a teenage son in Sarajevo–since becoming a mother herself, and that's the way she likes it. "Maybe I'll make one movie a year, maybe two, but it's not going to be more than that because I have other priorities now."

In 2010, she married fellow Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who she met at the age of 17 on the set of comedy Jamón Jamón. The two, with little Leonardo, shuttle regularly between Madrid and Los Angeles, making the odd stop on location.

Although the family is in L.A. right now, it's not part of the master plan. "When I come here now, I have so many memories," Penélope says. "Some of them good, some of them not so good. I have lived beautiful moments here, but I don't want to live here. It is not the place where I want to raise my kids." Ask about Leonardo and she gives a diplomatic smile and declines to elaborate. "I talk about him all day long, even to strangers in the street; it is my favorite subject! But, you know; this is my job."

Another "job," although certainly a rather pleasant one, is her role as the face of Lancôme's Trésor. "It was actually my first perfume," she says. Penélope's mother, who ran a beauty salon in Madrid, gave her the scent in her teens, and she always returns to it. "It's a real history," she says, "real memories that are related to this scent. It's funny, after over 20 years...." Of working with the brand, she adds, "You arrive in this Lancôme world, and everything is full of white flowers, and everything smells good. You feel like you are walking on clouds, and then," she says laughing, "you go home."

She is uncompromising about the work-family divide. When the actress arrived in the U.S. to take a role in Stephen Frear's The Hi-Lo Country in 1997, she bought a return ticket to Madrid. She still spends a lot of time there, often preparing for roles with an acting coach she has had for almost 20 years. Wherever she is, "I won't go to places where you're going to find more attention. I go to the opposite." Her perfect day is "running around with my family at the beach, that's all."

Ask Penelope how her family and friends would describe her and she replies: "Stubborn. Even my mother would say that as the first word!" She would describe herself as "persistent. It is my best friend and my worst enemy. And I don't just mean fighting for something related to work; it could be anything. I have a strong personality, and I say what I think. I think I've been better about being a little more flexible." Tell her she's a no-bullshit girl and she grins broadly. "That is the best compliment you can give me!"

Even though Penélope is remarkably direct and is effusive about "being happier in my 30s than I was in my 20s," she also characterizes herself as a "worrier. I am living for every day and trying to have less fear, less worry. But I have always worried about everything; it's in my nature. It's the thing that makes me suffer the most."

It's an unusual observation, coming from this force of nature, but life isn't a red carpet all the time. "I don't like that about myself because it's really painful. That's still my main thing to work on. When that is better and I am more in the present, I'm sure it affects my work. But it's all like periods of your life: You are present, or you're dealing with a house of monsters."

But Penélope's humor can't be repressed for long–she's the first to make fun of the rarefied world she inhabits. If she were invisible for a day, she says, "I would go to one of those [legendary talent agency] CAA meetings that they have on Monday and see all the things that they have to say about us actors. Ooh, to be a fly on the wall..."

Her actress idol, as it is for many other is La Streep. "When I first started watching movies and I saw Meryl's work, that's when I became obsessed with acting," Penélope says. "Now I kiss her whenever I see her! She must think I'm crazy." She recalls a magazine shoot they did together a few years ago for the AIDS charity (RED). "As soon as she got to the set, I had to sit topless on top of her. It was the most interesting love scene I've ever done."

On fashion, Penélope is decisive. Her go-to designers are Scott, "Alaïa, Armani, Dolce, Karl Lagerfeld, and John Galliano." Day to day, she lives in Mother jeans and her favorite black Isabel Marant wedge sneakers. ("They are sold out everywhere! Tell her to make more!") Her favorite red-carpet look, along with dramatic peach Atelier Versace she wore in 2007, is "the vintage Balmain I wore when I won the Oscar [in 2009]." The Oscar that is in Spain, by the way.

So Penélope will continue with her double life: film and family, L.A. and Madrid, English and Spanish. She's not above some Spanish wearing either. "Say it, estúpido. Or estúpida!" she chortles. "But gilipollas is the best word." What's that? "It's like asshole. Gilipollas is a great word. Promise me you'll end the story with it?" Okay, persistence wins. And Penélope Cruz is not a gilipollas.

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Pictured above: Embroidered silk gown and flower headpieces, by special order, Giambattista Valli Haute Couture. Bergdorf Goodman; 212-753-7300. Studs (worn throughout), Harry Winston. 800-988-4110.

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