Cruz Has Her Hands Full
Penelope Cruz is busy, busy, busy. She’s in her hometown, Madrid, dashing to an evening shoot for Pedro Almodovar’s Los Abrazos Rotos (”Broken Embraces”), while talking to us on her cell as her driver zips in and out of traffic. She’s got two other films to plug: the mournful Elegy opposite Ben Kingsley, and Woody Allen’s decidedly more cheerful Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in which she locks lips with both Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson. (Not a big deal, she says, but “it was very crowded that day on the set”.)
So where are you based these days? Madrid is always my main home because my family is here and I have a house here. I spend a lot of time in Los Angeles, too, but I’ve always preferred New York.
Do you still take ballet classes? Filming the musical Nine with Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren gave me a big reason to dance five-six hours a day. I’m really excited about the movie.
With Elegy, it seems you’re really coming into your own with an English-language role. Now that I have spent all those years studying, and living where they speak the language, I feel more free, though I still have my accent. Woody Allen asked me to improvise in English and Spanish. I couldn’t have done that three or four years ago. It’s great not having to hear anymore that I don’t speak English well.
And what was it like, working with Woody Allen? He’s not a man of too many words. I would go to him with all these questions about the character and he’d say, “We can do this if you want, but I trust where you’re going with the character.” He’s very direct and very funny. Of course I would have liked more time, but he shoots a whole movie in about five weeks. -Teresa Wiltz, LATWP editor@expressindia.com
The Indian Express