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Penélope Cruz: Snapshot

Name: Penélope Cruz
Date of Birth: April 28, 1974
Birth Place: Madrid, Spain

Although she came to Hollywood with 20 films and a Spanish Academy Award under her belt, screen siren Penélope Cruz initially became best known stateside as the sultry girlfriend of costars Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey.

After appearing in a string of mediocre films from All the Pretty Horses to Sahara, Cruz returned to her roots, collaborating with Oscar-winning filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar on the dramedy Volver. Cruz's gut-wrenching performance made her the first Spanish Best Actress nominee in Oscar history.

Offscreen, the brunette beauty had son Leo with husband, Spanish actor Javier Bardem – whom she costarred with in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which earned Cruz a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award.

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Penélope Cruz: Five Fun Facts

Penélope Cruz studied ballet for nine years and it shows on her toes. "All of them are twisted," she told Time in 2000. "I used to bleed from dancing so much. I would peel my toenails off and throw them away because they were completely black from the pain. To look at them now and see they are like this – they have a lot of life for me."
Penélope Cruz donated her salary from The Hi-Lo Country to Mother Theresa's children's sanctuary in Calcutta after spending a week there as a volunteer.
After filming 1998's All the Pretty Horses, where animals played a prominent role, Penélope Cruz became a vegetarian.
Penélope Cruz, who has played a variety of ethnicities in her films, tried to pull off Japanese when she read the script for Memoirs of a Geisha. "I heard that Steven Spielberg wants to make that movie," she told the Los Angeles Times in 1999. "So I was asking everybody, 'Do you think I can look Japanese?' But nobody thinks I can look Japanese."
Penélope Cruz told PEOPLE in 2001 that when she gets homesick, she heads over to fellow Spaniard Antonio Banderas' house: "He and Melanie [Griffith] make Spanish paella if I need it."

Penélope Cruz: Biography

1980: A Bad Girl
Cruz's parents, hairdresser Encarna and retailer Eduardo, give their rambunctious daughter an outlet for her nonstop energy: ballet classes. "When I was small, I used to give others small nervous breakdowns," she tells Chicago Sun-Times in 2000. "I'd throw myself on the floor and start kicking and breaking things when I didn't get my way." Cruz eventually studies at Spain's National Conservatory in Madrid.
1989: Beating the Competition
Cruz, 15, competes in a talent agency audition and beats more than 300 girls to win. "She was absolutely magic. It was obvious there was something very impressive about this kid," Katrina Bayonas, the agent who signed Cruz, says in 1999. "She was very green, but there was a presence. There was just something coming from within." In the next two years, Cruz hosts the Spanish TV talk show La Quinta Marcha and lands her feature film debut in El labertinto Griego (The Greek Labyrinth).
1992: The Breakthrough
Cruz, 17, snags her first leading role as the lusty Sylvia in Bigas Lunas' art-house hit Jamón, Jamón (Ham Ham). After appearing topless in the film, Cruz becomes a major sex symbol. "It was a great part, but...I wasn't really ready for the nudity," Cruz tells L.A.'s Daily News in 1999. "But I have no regrets because I wanted to start working and it changed my life." She shows her versatility as the virginal Luz in Fernando Trueba's Oscar-winning Belle Epoque.