On April 28, 1974, Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born. She is an actress from Spain. She has received numerous awards and nominations for her roles in films of various genres, particularly those in the Spanish language, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award, as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.
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Net Worth
Penelope Cruz’s net worth is believed to be $55 million. Penélope Cruz’s “Vanilla Sky” earned her around $2 million in 2001. Her annual earnings as an L’Oreal cosmetics endorsement were $2 million.
Career Journey
Cruz was signed by an agency at the age of 15 and made her acting debut on television at the age of 16, followed by her feature film debut the following year in Jamón Jamón (1992). Cruz’s leading roles in the films All the Pretty Horses, Vanilla Sky, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and Blow earned her international acclaim. She’s since starred in a number of films, including the comedy Waking Up in Reno, the thriller Gothika, the Christmas picture Noel, the action-adventure flicks Sahara and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), the crime drama The Counselor, and the mystery film Murder on the Orient Express. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for her parts in Volver (2006) and Nine (2009), respectively. Her portrayal in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2008.
Cruz has modelled for Mango, Ralph Lauren, and L’Oréal, as well as designing apparel for Mango with her younger sister Mónica Cruz. She has been a Chanel house ambassador since 2018. She is the first and only Spanish actress to be nominated for and win an Academy Award, as well as the first and only Spanish actress to be honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Cruz made her American television debut in the FX series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story in 2018, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her role as Italian fashion designer Donatella Versace. Belle Époque (1992), Open Your Eyes (1997), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000), and Woman on Top (2000) were among her subsequent roles (2000). She is also known for her frequent collaborations with director Pedro Almodóvar in films such as 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), as well as director Woody Allen in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and To Rome with Love (2012).
Family and Early life
Cruz was born on April 28, 1974, in Alcobendas, Madrid region, Spain, to Encarna Sánchez, an Andalusian hairdresser and personal manager, and Eduardo Cruz, an Extremaduran retailer and mechanic. Mónica, who is also an actress, and Eduardo, who is a singer, are her two siblings. Salma, her paternal half-sister, is also her sibling. She was brought up as a devout Roman Catholic. Cruz grew raised in Alcobendas, where she spent a lot of time at her grandmother’s house. She described herself as having had a pleasant childhood. Cruz recalls “I was playing with some buddies and was conscious that I was acting as though I was. I’d make up a character and act as if I were someone else.”
Cruz began her career by studying classical ballet at Spain’s National Conservatory for nine years. Cristina Rota’s school provided her with three years of Spanish ballet training and four years of theatre training. Ballet, she added, imparted in her a sense of discipline that would be useful in her future acting profession. Her father bought a Betamax machine for her when she was ten or eleven years old, which was a pretty rare item in her neighbourhood at the time. Cruz grew interested in acting as a teenager after viewing Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
She went to casting calls for an agent but was repeatedly turned down because she was too young, according to the agent. Cruz had this to say about the experience: “As a kid, I was a pretty outgoing person…. When I was in high school, I was studying at night, I was in ballet, and I was doing castings. I looked for an agency and was turned down three times because I was a small child, but I persisted. After all these years, I’m still with her.” Cruz won an audition at a talent agency in 1989 when she was 15 years old, beating out over 300 other girls. “She was just wonderful,” Cruz’s agent Katrina Bayonas said in 1999.
Husband and Personal life
Cruz is married to Javier Bardem, a Spanish actor. In addition to playing beside her in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Bardem was her co-star in her breakout role as Silvia in Jamón, Jamón. They also appeared together in the 2013 film The Counselor and the 2018 film Everybody Knows. Cruz began dating Bardem in 2007, and the two married in a secret ceremony at a friend’s home in the Bahamas in early July 2010. They have a son, Leo Encinas Cruz, who was born in Los Angeles in January 2011 and a daughter, Luna Encinas Cruz, who was born in Madrid in July 2013. Following the birth of her children, she became an outspoken supporter of public breastfeeding. After appearing together in Vanilla Sky, Cruz had a three-year romance with Tom Cruise. In January 2004, the partnership came to an end. Cruz settled a defamation action with Australian magazine New Idea in June 2003 over a story about her relationship with Cruise that was published in the magazine; the publication had to apologise, pay her legal expenses, and donate $3,200 to her selected charity. Cruz, who goes by the nickname Pe, has a clothes store in Madrid and collaborated with her younger sister to design jewellery and handbags for a Japanese company. Cruz signed a petition in 2009 to free filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was detained in Switzerland in 1977 on charges of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.
