Penelope Cruz is a Spanish actress who has won considerable critical acclaim for her role in Spanish and English movies. She is the first Spanish actress to be nominated for an Oscar. Cruz speaks four languages fluently. She also donates a considerable amount of money and time to charity. From 2001, Cruz had a three-year relationship with actor Tom Cruise.

 

Cruz was born in Madrid in 1974 to a hairdresser mother and motor mechanic father. She wanted to be a dancer as a child and studied classical ballet for nine years. Her younger sister Monica is a famous Spanish dancer. However, when Cruz was 15, she decided to get into acting after beating 300 other hopefuls at a talent agency audition.

 

Cruz first achieved fame in a Spanish pop video and then as a TV presenter. Her first major films were ‘Jamón, Jamón’ and ‘Belle Époque’, which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2000 she appeared with Matt Damon in ‘All the Pretty Horses’. She rose to fame by co-starring in ‘Vanilla Sky’, opposite Tom Cruise.

 

Cruz has received two Goya Awards and two European Film Awards for her work. She also won a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2006, she was used as the face for L’Oreal’s worldwide advertising campaign and a year later, she launched her own fashion line in Spain. She wants to balance her life and work between Hollywood and Europe.