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Volver star Penélope Cruz discusses her relationship with director, Pedro Almodovar, fitting into American cinema, and her pride in being the first Spanish woman nominated for a Best Actress Oscar (13:14).
 

Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Penélope Cruz to this program. The talented actress can now add Oscar nominee to her already impressive resume. She's up for an Academy Award in the leading actress category for her role in the film, "Volver." She is the first Spanish actress in history vying for this top honor. Here now a scene from "Volver."

[Film Clip]

Tavis: So I told Penélope as she walked on the set how honored I was to have her on the program. I said, "This is going to be a really tough interview, though. I'm trying to think of like five or eight questions to take up this time segment here that you have not already been asked." I can't imagine that I could ask you anything you've not already been asked. So are you tired of answering questions yet?

Penélope Cruz: No, because I love the movie so much. It's a blessing when you have to do something for so many months with something that you love. You don't have to lie about it. You can speak it from your heart. You try to be honest, but I'm not this passionate every time. This is really a movie that is much more than movie for me.

Tavis: So why so passionate about this project?

Cruz: I love Pedro Almodovar so much.

Tavis: The director. The third time working with him?

Cruz: Third time.

Tavis: Third time, yes.

Cruz: And he's been there, the artist that has inspired me the most, you know, all my years, my childhood, my teenage years growing up, looking at movies, becoming almost obsessed with his work, with his way of seeing the world, the way he understands women, what he does with actresses.

The fact that this is our third movie together and every time has been ever better than the dream. The reality of working with him and what I have learned from him and what he's done for me. Giving me the trust, to give me these kinds of characters, has opened so many doors for me with these kinds of materials. So I'm so excited.

Tavis: Take me back to your childhood since you went there. Let's go back to your childhood. Tell me what you were seeing in his work then that so attracted you to his work and when you knew that this is the guy that you wanted to work with.

Cruz: I fell in love with "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown." I loved that movie and I loved Carmen, you know, Carmen Maura who is my mother in "Volver." Antonio Banderas was in that movie too, a lot of great actors. But then when I saw "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!," I was thirteen and I went to the theater and I wasn't supposed to watch that movie. I think you had to be seventeen.

Tavis: So you snuck in?

Cruz: I did, and I came out of the theater and I remember I was walking around the center of Madrid, walking around the square, and I had to do something with these feelings that this man makes me feel with his art. I wanted to meet him. I wanted to be able to, of course, work with him which became like an impossible dream, but the passion that I had was what made me go and look for an agent, go to theater schools. So during the day, I was going to high school every day and, at night, I was studying theater, ballet, I would go to casting. I found an agent and I've been with her now -

Tavis: - all these years with the same agent?

Cruz: Yep.

Tavis: Wow. That's a great story right there. She must be pretty happy too.

Cruz: Yeah. We are like family. We've gone through a lot together. Pedro was really a strong presence in my life even before I met him because of everything, his movies, his films. So everything that is happening with the movie, to get the nomination for the movie in Spanish that I became with this, a part of me just doesn't completely believe what is happening.

Tavis: What is also fascinating to me, back to what you said earlier about why you wanted to work with him, it's all the stuff you just laid out which is reason to celebrate. But on top of that, if you were turned on as a teenager by what he did with the women onscreen, the chance to be in a movie that revolves around what he's doing with women onscreen, three different generations of women, must be pretty exciting as well. For those who have not seen the movie, tell me about the storyline.

Cruz: Well, even for Pedro, it's difficult to explain everything that goes on in this movie. Our mother comes back to life in the form of a ghost, but my cousin doesn't believe in ghosts.

Tavis: Let me stop before you go further. To make it even easier for people who haven't seen it yet, Volver, I'm told, means "to return."

Cruz: "To return," yes.

Tavis: It means "to return." All right, return to your story.

Cruz: So our mother returns to life, but I don't believe it until I see it. My sister doesn't believe in ghosts and not all of the people in the neighborhood where we come from. All of those people believe and have a very different relationship with death, the people that passed away. They go and clean their tombs every Saturday or Sunday. When the tomb is very clean, it means that being is receiving a lot of love.

So the people we're showed with in the beginning of the movie, the first scene where we are cleaning the tombs, all the extras in that scene, they were not actresses. They were women that go there to do that for the people they lost.

Tavis: They're real people.

Cruz: And they clean them while they're singing. It's amazing. I haven't seen that in the world, something that I think is very much from La Mancha, which is the place where Pedro was born and grew up. I think that has formed a lot of things in his personality that are so interesting and unique, so particular.

You know, something in him that is so what is this? Is it so real that everyone can identify with? But at the same time, it's so unique. It always made me very curious about that part of his personality. I think that comes from the relationship with all these women, his mom, his two sisters. Very strong personalities.

Tavis: I saw the project over the weekend and I was struck by - back to Pedro - the value, the appreciation, that they have for their dead, to your point a moment ago about cleaning these tombs, and what that means in that particular culture. They value the life even of the deceased. Human comes from the word "humando" which means "burying your dead." I was struck by the appreciation they have for people even after they've passed on to spend that time at a gravesite.

Cruz: Yeah, I think it's beautiful. I asked him, of course. Months before, I did a little bit of research. We went to do our photo shoot and we have to learn the accent and we have to take something just of our character for the movie, pictures that you see on the set of the characters years before.

So that time for us, that visit to La Mancha, was so important for us to get into character, to understand the point of view of these women. It can be your reality or not. It's not mine, but it's very good for me to understand why they feel like that and I really respect it and I think it's beautiful that they do that.

Tavis: So I'm having a hard time looking at you in this gorgeous outfit with this gorgeous jewelry and everything you have on. I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how you researched the cooking and the cleaning part of your character (laughter). Somebody taught you how to do that right? You did not know how to cook and clean.

Cruz: I know how to clean. I was a little bit out of training because of living in hotels so much, so I started cleaning a lot around my house. I mean, my mother said, "Penélope has a fever. Why is she doing the dishes? We didn't even ask her." If Pedro doesn't think that I'm cleaning the floor the right way, he didn't even mention that in the rehearsal.

We rehearsed for three months. I had to learn to drive a huge van. I had to take cooking lessons for three months. Rehearsals with Pedro every afternoon and all the other actresses. I had to work on the Flamenco number for the part with the Flamenco women. He never mentioned about the cleaning, but I knew for those little things, those are the most important things for him. I think that they should be for an actress too, so I cleaned everybody's house a lot of times.

Tavis: Are you still cleaning?

Cruz: I went back to the hotel lifestyle.

Tavis: I got a house that needs a whole lot of help (laughter).

Cruz: It's a great feeling. You don't do that when you're in hotels. You can't cook for yourself or anybody else. I spend most of the time in hotels when I'm shooting.

Tavis: How do you divide your time? Do you still spend a lot of time in Spain where your family lives still?

Cruz: It depends on where I'm shooting. I cannot plan the whole year, but I have a home here and a home in Madrid. So I go back and forth.

Tavis: I'm curious now what lessons you've learned, what it means for you to have the opportunity, particularly in the world we live now where everybody says we live in a global world, the world is shrinking. If you get a chance to go back and forth between here and there all the time, which means what for you? What do you get out of that? What does it do for you to have the freedom to go back and forth so readily between two different parts of the world?

Cruz: For me, it just became normal. It's the career that I was dreaming about. Now I can work in four different languages. I mean, I studied very hard for that, but they also are giving me the opportunity in all those different countries to be able to do it. I still have my accent. I can work and have my accent in French, but you keep studying and working on it and you can use those accents.

I think the movies have to reflect the reality of what's going on out there in the world. That's why it was feeling like a group of people that was working in the American industry, the ones that don't have English as their main language or the ones with an accent. It's still a very small group. I'm happy to be one member of that group, but I think it's time for it to be growing at a different pace.

Tavis: Does it bother you?I ask this because some people have an accent, but they try to get rid of it to fit in to American cinema and there are others who, you know, I am what I am and that's all that I am and this is my accent. Which category do you fall into?

Cruz: I think I feel that I am right there in the middle because I think the audience can feel your struggle when you're working in a different language, especially in the beginning. Now I feel more comfortable, but in the beginning, I was suffering with it and I think the audience can feel it. So unless you really use that for whichever way, for your character, you have to make that happen. If not, the audience can feel very uncomfortable and I understand how that can happen.

But I also don't want to fight against - you know, I don't want to forget who I am and where I come from. I am a European actress that is also working here. So I speak Spanish and, when I am working on a movie, especially now after a few years working here, I can get my accent to a point where it's less accent now when I have a conversation where I'm looking for the words and improvising.

But I want to do that. I want to get more vocabulary, get rid of the accent, without losing the other part of being just who I am. I am a Spanish actress who is very lucky to have all these opportunities to work in these other places. I feel very welcome here also in America and I'm very happy about that. It's just a combination of being truthful to yourself, but at the same time, try to do the best you can and, with English, I would not stop studying now.

Tavis: Finally, speaking of accents, what a banner year. Nineteen nominations for people out of this Spanish-speaking community. The short answer is, it's about time, but that's got to be a huge celebration as well.

Cruz: It's amazing. Today we were having the celebration of all the nominees at lunch. A hundred forty nominees were there. So many of those people were from Spain and from Mexico. It's huge because we're not used to it. It's really a year where it's finally changing. It's a beautiful thing.

A lot of my friends were there. Now I'm getting to see them more, but they're people that I truly admire. To see how they're being received here and embraced and how their talent is so valued here is really beautiful.

Tavis: It's a beautiful film and it's beautiful that you were nominated along with some of the others in here, so congratulations on the nomination. We'll be watching to see how this works out for you.

Cruz: Thank you so much.

Tavis: "Volver" is now playing at a theater near you starring Oscar-nominated actress, Penélope Cruz. If you can't get to "Volver" right away, just turn on your television any given night and check her out in "Blow," and I got to. Anyway, another issue for another conversation. Nice to have you on the program.