Interview: Penelope Cruz - Penelope pitstop

THE day I am due to meet Penélope Cruz, she appears to be omnipresent. Posters for her latest film, Broken Embraces, are plastered everywhere, with a tousled Cruz staring down with alluring dark-brown eyes.

At the National Film Theatre, the same picture is being hastily erected in the lobby to promote an on-stage interview she's giving tonight, to launch a month-long retrospective of her work. Meanwhile, the tabloids are full of pictures of her from the UK première of Broken Embraces at Somerset House, wearing a scarlet trouser suit after an airline lost her luggage. All that's missing is Cruz on a television screen, telling me she's "worth it", as part of her L'Oréal duties.

When I'm ushered into her suite, it's 5:30pm and I'm her last interview for the day, before she heads to the NFT. Sitting bare-foot and cross-legged on a sofa, she cuts a serene figure in blue jeans, white T-shirt and black jacket.

While it might seem there's no escaping Cruz, it does demonstrate her trajectory in the last year. With Broken Embraces marking her fourth film for pre-eminent Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, she also has a forthcoming role in the huge Hollywood musical Nine, one of the most anticipated releases for the winter. Most importantly, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in February for her turn in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. "Yeah," she nods slowly, when I ask her to sum up the last 12 months, "this has been a very good year. With the Oscar, and all the amazing surprises that I've got. A very, very important year in many ways."

It may prove even more significant. By the time she will leave for Berlin to continue her promotional duties, the internet will be awash with (unconfirmed) rumours that she is four months pregnant by her Spanish actor-boyfriend Javier Bardem. If they're not quite the European equivalent of Brangelina, there's no question that Cruz is big business now. Not that she acts it. She has only just found out the National Film Theatre is running a retrospective, one that takes audiences back to Jamón, Jamón, her breakthrough 1992 film where she first met Bardem. "I found out this week," she says. So how does it feel? "It makes me think that I am 35 but I have already been working for 20 years, and it has gone so fast.

"It also makes me think, 'Why don't I take a little rest?' Maybe. Perhaps it would be a good idea." Is she a workaholic? "For many years I was working all the time. Sometimes it was four movies a year, so I was always living on a movie set. And then the last three years, since (Almodóvar's 2006 film] Volver, it started to change a little bit. And I've been doing maybe one or two a year, and now I'm going towards one a year.

"Maybe in a year where two great things come along, you do two. But then if there is a year where you don't feel totally passionate about something, maybe you take that time to study or do other things for your life. So I would not be going from set to set."

It's self-evident that Cruz is desperate to cling to some semblance of normality in the midst of the hysteria around her. "I do lead a normal life, and that's very important – for my health and my work. Sometimes it's difficult and you have to fight for some normality in your life. Sometimes there can be problems. You get followed, and nobody likes being followed by three cars. But fortunately that doesn't happen every day."

I wonder how she deals with all the internet rumours about her. "You can't keep up with all that," she retorts. "You just do your thing."

While her penchant for dating co-stars has led to an intensified interest around her love life, Cruz has always maintained a dignified silence when it comes to her relationships. Admittedly, such a tactic is probably wise when you count Tom Cruise as an ex-boyfriend. Dating for three years, the pair met on Vanilla Sky – Cameron Crowe's Hollywood remake of the Spanish-language drama Open Your Eyes, in which Cruz replayed her role in the original – shortly after Cruise had split from wife Nicole Kidman.

After that, following a brief fling with her Sahara co-star Matthew McConaughey, she got together with Bardem on the set of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, some 16 years after they met on Jamón, Jamón. She visibly stiffens as soon as his name is mentioned. The couple have refused to publicly acknowledge their relationship, despite various paparazzi shots of them frolicking on holiday together, and Cruz isn't about to start here. I try a more indirect approach. How was it to reunite with him on the Allen film? "It was great to work again with him after so many years," she says. "When we worked together we were 17, and that was the movie that was a huge opportunity for us."

Cruz's experience at that point amounted to little more than starring in a pop video for the Spanish band Mecano (she dated the band-member Nacho Cano for a while). It was her first film of any kind, and there was certainly little evidence in her family background to suggest that a career as an actress awaited her. She was raised in the Madrid suburb of Alcobemdas; her father, Eduardo, worked as a mechanic, her mother, Encarna, was a hairdresser. As a child, Cruz had dreams of becoming a ballerina, and studied classical ballet.

It was after seeing Almodóvar's 1990 film Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down that she decided to become an actress. I tell her, to my shame, that I've never seen it. "You haven't seen that movie? Please watch it. It's a masterpiece," she says, earnestly. Does she remember watching it? "I was alone in the theatre and that's when I really discovered the pleasure of movies, the addiction of cinema. From the first shot, I was totally gripped, 100 per cent. I said, 'If something can hold my attention this much…' And I was fascinated by Pedro, his personality, his eyes, the way he saw the world, the way he could talk about it, what he did with the actors… and that day I decided to try."

That she has become Almodóvar's muse, almost two decades later, is a fairy tale even she can't fail to acknowledge. "It's like a fantasy world. It was exactly what I dreamt." She has certainly paid her dues with the director. In their first collaboration, 1997's Live Flesh, she had little more than a bit-part – as a prostitute giving birth on the back of a bus in the film's opening sequence. In the sublime All About My Mother (1999), she played a supporting role, as a nun made pregnant by a transsexual. By the time it got to Volver, she had graduated to Almodóvar's leading lady, winning the role of Raimunda, a mother who kills her no-good husband for the sake of her daughter.

The film won Cruz a first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and it's not overstating the case to claim it rescued her career. She had made a concerted effort to crack Hollywood, yet her English-language films had nearly all floundered. In the UK, trailer-trash comedy Waking Up In Reno, the Bob Dylan-scripted Masked and Anonymous, 1930s romance Head in the Clouds, bank robbery comedy Bandidas and bullfighting tale Manolete were never even released in cinemas.

Meanwhile, recent efforts Chromophobia and The Good Night might as well not have been, such little impact did they make. The latter, which cast her as a fantasy in the mind of Martin Freeman's jingle-writer, was just one example of how misunderstood and misused she was by Hollywood. Only Elegy, the New York-set film in which she played a naïve student who falls into an affair with her literature professor (Ben Kingsley), showed what she is capable of – and even that was directed by the Barcelona-born Isabel Coixet.

Perhaps understandably, it's Spanish directors who have truly unlocked Cruz's potential, and she knows it. In her Oscar acceptance speech, she thanked both Bigas Luna (who made Jamón, Jamón) and Fernando Trueba (who directed her in 1992's Belle Epoque and later The Girl Of Your Dreams) "for giving me my first movies". She also thanked "the loyal people of Spain", in Spanish, naturally. "I couldn't name two per cent of the people I would love to thank," she says, "but it was important for me to say some words in Spanish, for the actors and actresses of my country. And for all the people that were up that night very late… and went to a bar that they had closed to celebrate if I won. A lot of those people I didn't even know, and then later I saw a video of those people, screaming and cheering, so supportive… and it was very beautiful to see that." If anything, this is a sign that Cruz has not forgotten her roots. Even now, although she spends some of the year in Los Angeles, she also keeps a home in Madrid, to be near her family.

Unsurprisingly, she also thanked "my friend Pedro Almodóvar, for having made me part of so many of his adventures". Their latest adventure, Broken Embraces, is another classy collaboration. She plays Lena, a would-be actress and part-time call girl who sleeps her way into a film, bedding the project's producer-benefactor (José Luis Gómez) before turning her attention to the handsome director (Lluís Homar). With Cruz wearing blonde hair to disguise her brunette locks, Lena is certainly one of the more duplicitous characters she has ever played. "I think Lena likes pretending to be somebody else, and almost enjoys that she has to lie to survive," claims Cruz. "She has no choice. And she even becomes a little bit manipulative."

Given that it's the first time she has played an actress for Almodóvar, I wonder whether she sees Lena as a kindred spirit. "No, not at all. I think she's one of the most different characters that I have played. Her energy is completely different to mine. The way Lena would express her emotions is completely different from me. Pedro didn't want too many tears for Lena, so it was very interesting for me. I found myself crying so much more between takes – because he wanted the moment before or after. And he would take me to that place, where I would have to get that release. But he wouldn't film it – he would film the moment right before or right after."

It's not hard to imagine the fragile-looking Cruz bursting into tears on a regular basis, if only because she strikes you as a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve (unless she's in an interview, of course). "I'm very emotional," she confirms, "especially when I'm working with my emotions. If I don't get that release of crying, I can get very anxious. But there are people that don't function that way. They express themselves in a different way – and they are better with anger or apathy or different states. Lena maybe holds things inside much more than I do."

The way she speaks, it sounds as if she allows herself to be putty in Almodóvar's hands, a wise move given how skilled a sculptor he is. While Almodóvar, who's gay, recently admitted to one newspaper that Cruz "has caused me sexual desire", the actress is a little more cautious with her words. "With Pedro, we have a very intense relationship on the set," she says. "We are very good friends and know each other very well. I think that on the set we have developed a technique to keep both things healthy – the friendship and the work relationship. We look at each other and almost know what the other one is thinking. That sometimes is dangerous because you then cross the line. But we haven't. He's my director and I'm his actress – and we treat each other with respect. But we don't get more relaxed about the work because we're good friends. It's almost the opposite."

Sex has always been an interesting one with Cruz. When she made Jamón, Jamón, playing an object of desire, she was immediately cast as a sex kitten in her own country, earning the nickname "the Spanish enchantress". But the actress backed off from the image, cutting her hair and refusing all roles that bore any similarity. "I had to be very strong about saying no to some things that would put me in that place. People were saying I was crazy saying no to directors, but I said, 'This shows my integrity.' Later, I found projects that were not based on that. Characters were offered to me because people had seen what I could do as an actress. Then it didn't worry me."

Still, Cruz played down her sex symbol status for years. The odd work aside – she played one of Don Juan's conquests in a 1998 TV film alongside Emmanuelle Béart – she more often than not found roles that did not rely on her sexuality, helping her guard against typecasting. So it was something of a departure when she appeared in a pop video with her younger sister, Monica. Done to promote the song Cosas Que Contar, penned and performed by their musician brother Eduardo, it featured the two siblings sitting in a studio dubbing a lesbian porn film. Naturally, these are no ordinary translators – they like to go to work dressed in stockings and high heels and sucking on lollipops.

The video caused an outcry because as things start getting hot and steamy in the studio, viewers mistakenly thought the sisters kissed each other. In truth, Cruz performed the kiss with Argentine actress Mia Maestro, though when I raise the subject her demeanour suddenly changes. She seems cold and wary. "We were playing," she says. So it wasn't done to be provocative? "If you see the video, you see that it was an act. So that was not done on purpose." Then, within an instant, she turns the smile back on – mentioning how she's "blown away" by her brother's talent as a musician.

While Cruz's sister is not known internationally, back in Spain, as a former top flamenco dancer who starred in a TV soap, she's almost as famous as Penélope. Sibling rivalry is not in evidence, though, with the girls combining their talents to design a clothing line for popular high-street store Mango. "My sister is great at that. She has a great eye and she's very talented," beams Cruz. She also has "a great relationship" with her parents, who are not afraid of being honest about her work, she says. "If I ask them, I know they're not going to beat around and tell me things in a softer way. They are very strong and very honest. I like that they can be very tough in a good way. I always got the truth, and I think that has always been very good."

Whether or not Cruz likes toying with her sexuality, she will next be seen flaunting it in Nine. Based on the Broadway musical, which takes its inspiration from Federico Fellini's classic film about filmmaking, 81/2, the film follows Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), a frazzled director, trying to cope with all the women in his life. Cruz plays Carla Albanese, a burlesque dancer and long-term mistress to the married Guido. With the astounding support cast including Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench, it's unquestionably the biggest Hollywood film Cruz has ever done.

Does she agree? "I don't know," she says, cautiously. "I just know it's a movie that I really wanted to do." Such diplomacy naturally extends to talking about her colleagues. Day-Lewis is a "gentleman", director Rob Marshall, who previously helmed the Oscar-winning musical Chicago, was "amazing", and if there was any friction between her and Kidman, given that she dated the Australian's ex-husband shortly after they split, she's not telling. "We all got along very well," she reports. "We all had lunch together, 20 of us, listening to Sophia Loren's stories about Mastroianni and Fellini. We all just wanted to hear what she had to say about so many things."

Cruz's slightly robotic response is a testament to just how well schooled she now is in the art of PR. Perhaps this is why she has blossomed in an unforgiving business – though talking to her, she still seems vulnerable. "I've always felt under pressure and had a lot of insecurity, so that doesn't change," she replies, "and I don't want that to change. I don't want to get to the set and feel too secure." Maybe it's this that is the secret to her success.

Broken Embraces opens on Friday