'I Loved Playing Her': Penelope Cruz Shines as Destructive Vixen

Feb. 4, 2009— -- Ever since she first arrived in Hollywood to work as an English-speaking actress, Penelope Cruz has mesmerized American audiences with her beauty, often considered a vision of unforgettable loveliness.

In addition to his work with the 34-year-old actress in his upcoming film "Broken Embraces," Spanish-born director Pedro Almodovar has worked with Cruz in the highly-acclaimed "Volver," in which she played a widow, and in "All About My Mother," in which she played an HIV-positive nun.

"When I see Pedro on the set, I really feel like he would give everything for that movie, it's their baby," says Cruz. "And actors always benefit from that passion and that work ethic."

And now, at last, Cruz has found that same connection with an American writer and director, Woody Allen -- even though her first encounter with him was brief.

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"Everybody told me a lot of peculiar stories," she remembers. "And it was like that. My meeting with him was a minute and a half long... He was very kind, very nice, but he only talks when he has something to say, and he brought me there to say that he was writing a script, that he liked my work in 'Volver,' and that maybe I was going to be right for the character."

Apparently she was. The result for Cruz was an Oscar nomination in the supporting actress category for her role in Allen's Spanish reverie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." As Maria Elena, the fiery, troubled ex of Javier Bardem's seductive artist, Cruz is a gloriously, abundantly disruptive force of nature.

"And I was in that state [of mind] for the whole three-and-a-half weeks," she said. "The whole time, 12 hours a day, in that state. And I loved playing her, but I also felt, 'Thank God this is not an eight-month shoot,' because I would have gone crazy!"