Penelope Cruz: Date of birth : April 28, 1974.

Birth Place : Madrid, Spain

Education : Secondary Studies (not finished). After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she followed another calling after she outdid more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. She received three years of Spanish Ballet training with Ángela Garrido. She also had jazz dance training with Raúl Caballero and she studied at Cristina Rota (mother of Juan Diego Botto) school in Madrid. She speaks Spanish, English, French, and Italian fluently.

3 years of Spanish ballet

4 years of theater (Cristina Rota's School and in New York)

Cruz first achieved fame when she appeared in the Lucio Villalba-directed video clip La fuerza del destino for the Spanish synthpop group Mecano. Cruz's first major films were Jamón, jamón and Belle Époque, a film which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film. In 1997, she starred as Sofía Pangia, alongside Eduardo Noriega in Abre los ojos, directed by Alejandro Amenábar, and in 2000 she appeared with Matt Damon in All the Pretty Horses. In 1999, she appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), which won an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film. In late 2001, she appeared in the film Vanilla Sky. She won a Best Actress ensemble award at the Cannes Film Festival and has been nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and BAFTA Award. She is the first Spanish Actress to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.



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