The movie that made Penelope Cruz doubt her abilities: “I almost fainted”
From the beginning of her career, Penélope Cruz has consistently worked with impressive filmmakers, making her feature film debut in Pedro Almodovar’s Jamón jamón alongside her future husband, Javier Bardem. She was just 16 when filming began, and the actor quickly proved her prowess as a star, appearing in a string of largely Spanish films over the next decade.
It was during the late 19990s and early 2000s, however, that she rose to prominence in the wider industry, earning acclaim for her role in the Oscar-winning All About My Mother. She starred in films like Blow with Johnny Depp, Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise, and All The Pretty Horses with Matt Damon, asserting her position in Hollywood as an in-demand actor.
Over the coming years, Cruz found herself nominated for several Academy Awards, beginning with a nod for her performance in Almodovar’s Volver in 2006. However, she managed to take home the coveted prize of ‘Best Supporting Actress’ after starring in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, playing the wife of Bardem’s character, a man enraptured by two other women at the same time, played by Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall.
However, when Cruz received her third nomination for Nine, she was surely proud of herself because she had initially had significant doubts before taking on the part of Carla Albanese. The movie, directed by Rob Marshall, featured a rather stacked cast, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, and Judi Dench.
Based on the musical inspired by Federico Fellini’s classic film 8 ½, the movie featured various musical numbers, with Cruz performing a solo called ‘A Call from the Vatican’. The characters resembled pre-existing figures, such as Day-Lewis playing Gudio, based on the protagonist of 8½, also inspired by Fellini himself, while Cruz’s character, Carla, was based on Anna Giovannini, Fellini’s mistress, who influenced Sandra Milo’s character Carla in 8½.
Reflecting on the film, Cruz couldn’t help but admit that she found preparing for the role quite difficult. She told Philip Berk, “It was very exciting. There was never a boring moment on this movie because it was extremely challenging. I will be lying if I said the numbers were easy. They were not. We had a lot of time of rehearsals, a couple of months, and we had great teachers. We had this big building in Shepperton. One room was for singing, one was for dancing. One room was the choreographies. I have to have a dialect coach because I had to speak English with an Italian accent.”
Cruz clearly had to do a lot of training to get into character, but it was the dancing that challenged her the most. “The day that I saw the choreography for the first time I almost fainted. I thought, ‘I don’t know that I will ever be able to do that.’ Rob talked to us and said, ‘You’re going to have the time. Little by little every day you will get to that point where you will be able to run the whole number from beginning to end and sing it while you are dancing.’”
Her hard work paid off, and Cruz found herself nominated for an Oscar, although it was Mo’Nique that won that year for Precious. The actor could hardly be dissatisfied, however, having won in the same category just the year before.
