Penlope Cruz

Vocation

Notable

Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, 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 the 2001 films Vanilla Sky and Blow. She has since built a successful career, appearing 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), and the action adventure Sahara (2005). She has received critical acclaim for her roles in Volver, a film by Almodovar, (2006) and Nine (2009) receiving Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for each. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She was the first Spanish actress in history to receive an Academy Award and the first Spanish actress to receive a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Cruz is a friend of director Pedro Almodovar, whom she has known for almost two decades and with whom she has worked on many films. Cruz owns a clothing store in Madrid and designed jewelry and handbags with her younger sister for a company in Japan. Cruz had a three-year relationship with Tom Cruise after they appeared together in Vanilla Sky. It ended in January 2004. In April 2003, she filed a lawsuit against the Australian magazine New Idea for defamation over an article about her relationship with Cruise. Cruz dated actor Matthew McConaughey from February 2005 to June 2006. Cruz began dating co-star Javier Bardem in 2007. They married in early July 2010 in a private ceremony at a friend's home in the Bahamas. Cruz gave birth to her first child, a son named Leonardo, on 22 January 2011 at the Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Link to Wikipedia biography