| Penelope Cruz "Returns" to Screen Glory with "Volver" |
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Page 1 of 2  Yes, Penélope Cruz is just as beautiful in person as she is on screen. Overflowing with charm, personality, and humility, she also comes across as every guy’s “dream blind date”—part movie star, part soda shop queen (since she is sipping on a milk shake as she comes into the interview room). Cruz is smart and more introspective than expected, especially when she explores the psychology of her latest character, Raimunda, in Pedro Almodóvar's "Volver."The svelte Madrid-born actress is also patient enough to answer an eager scribe’s Barbara Walters-like question, “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?,” with a neat response that reflects her admirable social consciousness, “I’d like to have a magic wand so that every time I waved it over someone in pain, it would take the pain away.” For now the magic Cruz wields is restricted to the silver screen and it’s strong and intoxicating. After some ill-advised and ignored forays in Hollywood, Cruz has returned to her element, as the leading lady in “Volver,” which has received critical acclaim at numerous festivals--including the New York Film Festival, for which she and Spain’s most famous director were in town. Cruz had won accolades and hearts in two early Almodóvar pictures, “Live Flesh” and the Oscar-winning “All About My Mother,” but in her Return (the meaning of the movie’s title) she plays a woman with a whole lot more going on. In fact, Raimunda is on overload. She works four jobs, her husband loses his, her teenage daughter stabs her horny step-father to death so she must dispose of the body, she starts to run a restaurant in the owner’s absence without his knowledge, and, to top it all, her dead mother (Carmen Maura) has reappeared—and family members, neighbors, and friends alike share their problems with her. For her calm, knowing portrayal of a woman trying to emerge from chaos, Cruz may bring along an Oscar to her next blind date. www.sonyclassics.com/volver
 Penelope Cruz in "Volver"  Cruz at the New York Film Frestival Premiere of "Volver"  Carmen Maura and Penélope Cruz   Penélope Cruz in the interview room PC: Pedro gives a great lesson on how it's possible to make a successful movie without the typical love story, without a bunch of explosions, without typical violence, and without things that are directed only to a teenage audience. Pedro never treats his audience like they're stupid and people really value that he gives them credit. He connects with people everywhere, of any age, of either sex, and of any culture. We’ve gone to many countries with this movie, and it's amazing the response to it. Everyone I’ve talked to loves “Volver,” including teenagers. Q: Just as Raimunda makes a personal transition to maturity by taking on the responsibility of running a restaurant, you seem to be making a similar transition by playing a mother. PC: I'm 32, I'm still a young woman, but I feel like I am making a transition in playing characters that I couldn't have played 10 years ago because of many, very real reasons. I was happy that I finally could play a mature woman, because I started working when I was a teenager and always was playing characters according to my age. I can play this mother of a teenage girl because my character gave birth when she was only fourteen. It had to be a young mother with a daughter who can wear her clothes. She’s the most emotionally demanding character that I've ever played, but I was ready to play her. And I’m thankful. I’m going to be seen in this role by many people because it's Pedro's movie and he has such a big audience everywhere. Q: So you think it will be really helpful to you in getting roles you weren’t considered for before? PC: It's a push for me in that direction. I am already noticing in what is being written about the film that it has opened people's minds and imaginations to what types of roles I can play. They say, “Oh, we didn't know that she could do that kind of character!” What I love about Pedro is that he gives you a character to play before you ever played such a character. He does it with all his actors. He's done it with me the three times that I've worked with him. He's done great things for my career by having the faith to place much responsibility in my hands with those difficult characters. I love the fear that I felt on the set of this movie, the terror of knowing about the huge amount of responsibility I had and how it was going to be a challenge every minute of every day to play this character. That is what I love about acting. Q: What do you think Pedro knew about you that gave him faith to cast you as Raimunda? PC: To play Raimunda, an actress would need to show all her different sides and all her vulnerabilities and strengths. Pedro always said he needed somebody that could have a little bit of those opposites in her. He chose me because he knows I can be very strong for some things and very vulnerable for others. He knows I cry a lot, even sometimes just from watching a TV commercial, and that I also can be extremely strong if I need to be. I am the first one surprised by those reactions sometimes, but he knows me very well and he knew that I was going to understand every side of Raimunda. Q: In “Volver,” the men are superfluous, even, as in the case of Raimunda’s husband, disposable. The four female leads are from the same family—Raimunda, her sister (Lola Dueñas), her daughter (Yohana Cobo), and her real, or ghost, mother (Maura). Even the supporting roles are women as well. Was working with a community of actresses helpful to you in playing a woman who surrounds herself with females? PC: It's great to play a character like mine in a movie that is an homage to women, to motherhood, to women's solidarity, and to a family of women. It’s not just the four women in the family, but women neighbors and women throughout the village. It's so needed to have more movies like this about women, and more female characters like Pedro wrote. I'm very honored to play one of these women in this movie, and it was special acting with all those other talented actresses. Carmen Maura is a legend and it was a thrill to make a movie with her. Q: What was it like witnessing Pedro and Carmen reunite after seventeen years? What was their dynamic like? PC: At some of the first rehearsals, I felt like a spy, you know? I was trying to focus on the scene, but I kept looking at them, like, “Wow, this is such a legendary couple and they've done seven movies together, and now they haven't worked together in almost twenty years and I'm witnessing this moment.” I felt like a member of the audience, so that would take me out of the rehearsals a lot. It was very interesting to see how very easy it was for them to work together again. After all that time apart, they were still speaking in the same language and communicating at the same level about work. I realized that when two people function well together at work, it doesn't matter if they’re not hanging out the rest of the time or hadn’t seen each other for years. What they had before was still intact. Q: How was it to for you to rehearse and prepare for the film with Pedro? PC: He's very specific and demanding, but I love that. If he doesn't like something he tells you, “Ok, that's not the way,” but if he sees that the way you found is right, he says, “Ok, don't forget that--that's the path for the character.” So he's always guides you with the truth. We did a lot of work at his office at the table, all of us and him, reading the scenes, talking about the script and our characters. We didn't act a scene until months later. Just reading and talking. To feel at ease doing what Raimunda does, I had to do a lot of work that you do when living at home, not when you are living in hotels. I had to go back to all of that, which was great for me. I took cooking lessons because I had to become very professional, cutting vegetables and all that. And I took lessons from flamenco singers because Raimunda sings a song and I had to pretend it was me singing. And because Raimunda works as a cleaning lady, I cleaned my house a lot, which made my family very worried. They thought I had a fever or something because I would go to their house and say, “Give me your broom, let me do your dishes.” It wasn’t because I don’t like cooking or cleaning, but that I am always so tired when I arrive home at the end of the day making a movie. Pedro wasn't telling me to do any of this, but I knew I better know how to clean well the floors when I got to the set or he was going to be so angry at me. So I did all this and in the afternoons I would go with Pedro and we’d do casting, including for my daughter. Yohana and two other girls made it to the final auditions and I was there for that entire process. It was amazing to see casting from the other side because I remember all the times I had auditioned and had such nerves and fear and energy from being in that room. |