On October 20, at the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo, in her speech upon receiving the Princess of Asturias, Meryl Streep exalted these figures of Spanish culture: Lorca, Picasso and Penélope Cruz. The nod to the actress had that of hers. We have the painting so close that it is not bad for someone who appreciates it a little further away – and someone, in this case – to refresh us on its value. The data also helps: Penelope has 34 awards and 56 nominations, including an Oscar and three other nominations. She is, with Sofia Loren and Anna Magnani, one of the most awarded Latin actresses of all time. Here is a Spanish woman who will be talked about forever and ever.
This Sunday, April 28, he turns 50 years old. They seem few if you look at his career, but too many if you look at his incredible appearance. It is very easy to fall into the temptation of writing that he reaches 50 in his prime, but the expression tastes cliché: it is the same thing we said when he turned 20, 30 and 40, and that is already very revealing. At 20, in 1994, she was a newly established actress in our cinema; At 30, in 2004, Hollywood felt like it was hers; At 40, in 2014, after breaking all the ceilings, she lived the unbeatable happiness of the family she had formed with Javier Bardem.
In April 1984, when she was 10 years old, we did not know her, but at that time almost all the keys to her story were hidden. She was a neighborhood girl, the eldest daughter of a working-middle-class couple who had always loved to dance close together. Penelope, of Serrat. They lived between Alcobendas and San Sebastián de los Reyes. Her sister Monica was seven years old and her mother Encarna de ella, about to become pregnant with Eduardo, attended a hair salon where her daughters accompanied her for long periods of time, a luxurious place to observe the condition. human. There was nothing missing in her house, but she didn’t have any leftovers either. So that her girls could practice ballet, Encarna worked almost too hard, but her blessed efforts opened a path for them that brightened her days.
Forty years later, Penelope reigns in the most elitist and sophisticated environments of cinema and fashion. She has established herself as a super actress and a style icon, in the manner of her revered Audrey Hepburn. But she is the opposite of a declassé, she has never lost her anchorage in reality nor her neighborhood girl air.
Penelope doesn’t forget. In her memory and in her life, the values that she imbibed in her childhood, her first great friendships – Goya Toledo, Juan Diego Botto -, the filmmakers who shaped her as an actress – Bigas Luna, Fernando Trueba, Pedro Almodóvar—or, of course, the impressive boy and actor with whom at the age of 17 he starred in his first feature film, Ham Ham (1992), and with which he dedicates himself to making his two children, Leo and Luna, his true masterpiece.
Beyond Meryl Streep, the devotion she arouses among the most admired women in the world is a separate issue. Sofia Loren, Madonna, Isabella Rossellini, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Dua Lipa, Gisele Bündchen, Demi Moore, Shakira, Carlota Casiraghi, Irina Shayk, Anna Wintour and Julia Roberts all have a soft spot for her. Last December, in Los Angeles, Kristen Stewart and her close friend Salma Hayek sponsored a cocktail party in her honor, which was attended by Jacqueline Bisset and Geena Davis. A couple of years ago, the MoMA in New York paid tribute to her and Rosalía, the other Spaniard who is recognized in any supermarket on the planet, traveled from Miami to drop these words about her idol since she was a teenager: “I adore her.” . For me it is a great reference, a great inspiration.”
Trying to figure out Penelope’s secret is a waste of time. The most obvious arguments—talent, determination, love for your profession, mental strength, tenacity, resistance, passion for challenges, self-demand, light, beauty, charm, class, distinction, luck—are not enough. It’s that I do not know what that escapes us what drives us crazy.
She gives thanks to life, of course, although she cannot shake off what she has baptized as “Rafael Azcona’s mother syndrome.” The formidable screenwriter recalled that, in his modest house in Logroño, in the post-war period, when his father arrived very happy because things were going very well and everyone rushed to celebrate, his mother immediately returned them to the ground: “We’ll pay for it.” “Now,” he murmured. Penelope enjoys the joys, but a little sideways: everything can turn upside down at any moment, this world is very absurd, unfair and cruel and the future of humanity appears most disturbing.
The 50 years old caught her in New York, in the middle of a hangover Ferrari ―the Michael Mann film for which she was again nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Awards― and immersed in the filming of The Bridea version of Bride of Frankenstein, James Whale’s classic from 1935. It is directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Penelope is very well surrounded by Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley, Peter Sarsgaard and Annette Bening. Then two projects await her that she has promoted: a very personal documentary and The days of abandonmentthe adaptation of the novel by Elena Ferrante that Isabel Coixet is going to make.
Meanwhile, these days, millions of people are devouring the video clip of the song on social networks. 313 in which she and Silvia Pérez Cruz collaborate with Residente, her favorite rapper, and the short film that, for a Chanel event – a brand for which she has been an ambassador since 2018 – she starred with Brad Pitt, who right now—what things—is filming with Javier Bardem a film by Joseph Kosinski set in Formula 1. “We have to live without missing anything,” Penelope recites in 313. “You are so much that you don’t fit,” Residente sings.
The Penelope who spent her afternoons at her mother’s hair salon was a very fanciful girl. But, wow, what a spectacular way to surpass childhood dreams.
