Penelope Cruz
I have stepped off the relationship scene to come to terms with myself. I have spent most of my adult life being 'someone's girlfriend', and now I am happy being single.Collection: Relationship
I love Spanish food. My diet is the Mediterranean diet, which is good food. I eat well.Collection: Diet
I don't know if I believe in marriage. I believe in family, love and children.Collection: Marriage
My first fear was about the devil, when I was around fire, something I saw in a movie. I think it's about pain, in whichever form it comes.Collection: Fear
I never felt, 'Oh, I think I look good.' I always tend to be more in the insecure side. And I thought that has always been a way to protect myself. Because I don't trust the good feelings that can come from that.Collection: Trust
I was raised Catholic, but then I discovered Buddhism, and I used to have a boyfriend who was a Scientologist, and they are all good religions that help people. As far as I'm concerned, you can have all three religions at once and it's okay!Collection: Good
I only drive in movies. I know that's very weird to hear for an American. I have a weird relationship with it. I know how to drive, but I never went to take the test.Collection: Movies
I can cook a little bit. I can cook a few Spanish dishes. But, in movies, it looks like I cook much better than I cook.Collection: Movies
You can always keep learning with acting, because the school is life and yourself and your friends and your relationships. I'm fascinated by it! It's infinito!Collection: Learning
For 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona,' for example, Woody Allen is one of the greatest American directors, and we really had a very good working relationship. We understand each other really well. He gave me one of the best opportunities somebody has ever given me in my career.Collection: Relationship
When I was 16, I got 'Jamon, Jamon.' Of course, I had to lie about my age. And I had to lie to my parents about the content of the script.Collection: Age
Madrid is what I call home, but also the States.Collection: Home
It's great working with my sister, because we are very close as a family - my brother, my sister and myself. We have a great relationship.Collection: Relationship
It doesn't happen every day, but many nights my dreams are like a movie. I don't see normal movement - I see things in very complicated shots. That's why I do remember many of them.Collection: Dreams
I try to eat healthily, but I love fried food and bad things. Give me a plate of bread, some oil and salt and I'm happy. But you can't eat like this all the time.Collection: Food
There are so many designers that I love, and I'm so lucky that I get to work with so many of them and sometimes spend time with them. As an actress, you get to go to these events and wear their things - it's fun, but it is what it is. I don't put a lot of time into it, but I respect what they do.Collection: Respect
I want to be remembered as somebody that tried to respect her integrity as an artist and as a person. And I don't want to be in any box. I don't want to be one thing.Collection: Respect
Sometimes you will do a close-up for a scene in the morning where you are totally distraught, then shoot the rest of that scene seven hours later. How do you hang on to that feeling all day without burning up, without going so far that you have nothing left to give when the cameras roll again?Collection: Morning
I have been hearing gossip and lies since I began working. When I was 17, I used to get very angry because I opened a magazine and I saw myself in a picture on a motorcycle, and the headline was, 'I'm getting married next month.'
I have fear, always, on the set. Insecurity to the point where the first week I always think I could be fired. I think that's a fear most actors have.
I like roles that people don't recognize me in.
There are so many designers that I love, and I'm so lucky that I get to work with so many of them and sometimes spend time with them.
I remember playing with some friends and being aware that I was acting as I was playing with them - I would think of a character and pretend to be someone else. My parents also took me to ballet school, and there I think I was able to start communicating those feelings or emotions - I danced for so many years.
The most difficult thing in the world is to start a career known only for your looks, and then to try to become a serious actress. No one will take you seriously once you are known as the pretty woman.
I used to dance for seventeen years -classical ballet, which was very disciplined. I like yoga and Pilates, but I don't have the discipline to go to the gym.
There's a lot of work that goes into it - if you think about how many collections a year that Karl Lagerfeld has to do, with Chanel and all the other things he does - you can't do that unless you are working 18 hours a day. It's really a lot of hard, hard work.
I try to look at the whole thing and say 'yes' to the projects that I cannot stop thinking about. If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work.
As an actress, I really love people like Anna Magnani and Debra Winger. I also think there is nobody better than Meryl Streep.
I want my son - and my kids, if I have more - to grow up in a way that is as anonymous as possible. The fact that his father and I have chosen to do the work that we do doesn't give anybody the right to invade our privacy.
When I was 16 or 17, when I started, I never even considered not doing a project. I just wanted to work.
The thing that really makes me happy is the real work and rehearsing and creating the character and the process of making the movie. Hollywood's not real.
Especially when you are advertising a product, I talk to the photographer and we create a character - it always gives you more freedom because it makes it less about yourself.
I love New York, but being there the whole year, it gets a little crazy with the speed and rhythm of things.
When I read a script, I try not to judge the characters. I try to have an open mind and really see what it makes me feel.
Even if you were aware of children and felt compassion, when you have your own, it multiplies. It breaks your heart to know that there are so many children in the world suffering so much.
In Spain, actresses work until they are old. That's my plan.
My parents owned a hair salon, so I learned a few tricks there. I can cut people's hair - if they let me.
There are roles I have said no to, but for different reasons. And, I never talk about those because I feel it's disrespectful to say, 'Oh, I said no to this project or that other project.' I'd rather talk about the ones that I said yes to and the reasons why.
I was 11 when I first said I wanted to become an actress, and everyone looked at me as if I had said I wanted to go to the moon.
I love Salma Hayek; we've been friends for a really long time. I admire how she has come such a long way and always remained grounded and who she is. She never compromises to follow her vision, and she is loyal. Such qualities only mark the great stars.
I've worked myself to exhaustion before. I was so young, and I thought I could do everything; it was just too much for my body and my mind.
My favourite actress is Meryl Streep. Oh, and Anna Magnani.
I am not somebody who likes to give advice, or anything like that, unless it's my closest friends or family.
There's so much more I want to do. I refuse to get to 50 and wait at home for the phone to ring. In Spain, actresses work until they are old. That's my plan.
I remember playing with some friends and being aware that I was acting as I was playing with them - I would think of a character and pretend to be someone else.
In my house every Sunday, everybody was cleaning the house. There was always music, and everybody was dancing, sometimes naked, around the house. Not hippie, but very free.
I came to New York to study ballet and English.
Maybe I'll make one movie a year, maybe two, but it's not going to be more than that because I have other priorities now.
I won't go to places where you're going to find more attention. I go to the opposite.
In 'Twice Born' I play my character in her 20s, 30s and 50s. For the fifty year old scenes, I had some prosthetics; it was interesting to see how I'm going to look when I'm fifty-five or so. I actually saw similarities between my grandmothers and my mother.