PENÉLOPE CRUZ
Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28, 1974), better known as Penélope Cruz, is a Spanish actress. At 15, she was signed by an agent. She made her acting debut at 16 on television, and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón (1992), to critical acclaim. Her subsequent roles in the 1990s and 2000s included Open your eyes (1997), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000) and Woman on Top (2000). Cruz achieved recognition for her lead roles in Vanilla Sky and Blow. Both films were released in 2001 and were commercially successful worldwide.
In the 2000s, she has appeared in films from a wide range of genres, including the comedy Waking Up in Reno (2002), the thriller Gothika (2003), the Christmas movie Noel (2004), the action adventure Sahara (2005), the animated G-Force and the musical drama Nine. Her most notable films to date are Volver (2006), for which she earned Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations, and (2008), for which she received an Academy Award. She was the first Spanish actress in history to receive an Academy Award, and the sixth Spanish actor overall.
In 1989, a 15 year old Cruz debuted and starred in the video clip of the song La Fuerza del Destino of the synth-pop trio Mecano. Between 1990 and 1967, Cruz hosted the Spanish TV channel Telecinco's talk show La Quinta Marcha , a program that was hosted by teenagers, aimed at a teenage audience. In 1992, Cruz made her feature film debut at 17 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 is 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 broadly 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 "[The film] stars actors of considerable physical appeal, most particularly Penelope 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 Epoque 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.
