The many faces of Penelope Cruz
Print Edition
Penelope Cruz plays a barren wife in one of her new movies and a doomed fiancee in another, but her own family life is strictly off limits.
The 39-year-old Spanish mother of two has played the dark-haired beauty for directors Pedro Almodovar and Woody Allen, toyed around with Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and engaged in intimate scenes with Michael Fassbender as his fiancee in this year’s Cormac McCarthy-scripted “The Counselor.”
Cruz had to delay the interview for her new movie “Twice Born” for half an hour so she could rush home to feed her infant daughter.
Later, when asked how she and husband Javier Bardem share childminding, she said: “I don’t talk about them, in interviews, my kids ... because I try to protect them from that part of the business.”
The Madrid native does talk about the roles she is taking now that she is on the young side of middle age, roles that may surprise fans.
“I love not feeling safe when I get to the set,” said Cruz, wearing a dark-parka to counter the pub’s chill.
“Not safe” applies to her portrayal of Gemma, an infertile woman, in “Twice Born.” The film had mixed reviews for its European run during 2012.
Based on a book by Italian author Margaret Mazzantini that Cruz says she loved, the film portrays a love affair between a daredevil American photographer, Diego, and Cruz’s academic researcher during the 1990s Bosnia war.
In it, Cruz embodies just about all possible versions of herself — from the 22-year-old who falls in love with Diego during a boisterous, drunken gathering of young artists and intellectuals in Mostar, to the married woman coming to terms with her infertility, to the older woman in her late 40s raising the child that she and Diego enlisted a surrogate mother to carry for them.
Cruz pulls off all three stages of her character convincingly. She firmly believes there’s life for actresses after 40 — especially in Europe.
“In Europe it’s very possible and also because it’s not my main ambition. I love my job and I feel lucky when I can work because I need to work but it’s not my No. 1 priority — that is family, and then my job.
“But Europe is a little bit different from growing up in LA, or working just there, especially if you’re a woman ... The actresses I look up to in Spain and the rest of Europe work if they want to work.”
She also talked about what drew her to play Gemma, her experiences in Sarajevo and her views on movies that glamorize violence — she says “The Counselor” doesn’t.
Q: What drew you to Gemma and her infertility?
A: She’s a complicated woman, not politically correct at all, and that’s what I love. She doesn’t have any mental filters, she says everything she feels and talks about a subject that’s difficult and important to any woman. When I read the book I was fascinated by the way she talks about motherhood and her conflict. Knowing it is not possible for her to have children, she becomes obsessed with it ... When I closed the last page I was 100 percent sure I wanted to play this character.
Q: How did the filming in Sarajevo and history of the bloody Bosnian conflict affect you?
A: The war was complex but even Bosnians, Serbians and Croatians say they wish they could explain how this got so out of control, so atrocious ... I’ve talked to many families with horrible stories. One woman told me something she saw I will never for the rest of my life be able to forget. I don’t want to repeat it ... something she saw that happened to a child.
Q: Your other movie “The Counselor” is violent in a different way.
A: I like the movie, it is really interesting and smart but I have doubts about the violence. There is one scene I still have not seen, in which Brad Pitt dies, the way he dies. I think violence should not be glamorized ... I haven’t been part of many violent movies but if I were, I’d want it not to feel like a video game ... It’s a tricky line, how to make something interesting especially with such brilliant dialogue from Cormac McCarthy. But the darkness is not glamorized. It doesn’t make it cool.
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