Background and career
Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born 28 April 1974) is a Spanish actress who performs in both Spanish and English-language films. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, three Goya Awards and a David di Donatello.
Cruz made her acting debut on television at age 16, and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón Jamón (1992). Her subsequent roles include Belle Époque (1992), Open Your Eyes (1997), Don Juan (1998), The Hi-Lo Country (1999), The Girl of Your Dreams (2000) and Woman on Top (2000). She has performed in seven films directed by Pedro Almodóvar: Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006), Broken Embraces (2009), I'm So Excited! (2013), Pain and Glory (2019), and Parallel Mothers (2021). She also produced several films she performed in, including Ma Ma (2015) and On the Fringe (2022).
For her role in Woody Allen's romantic drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Cruz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated for Academy Awards for Volver (2006), Nine (2009), and Parallel Mothers (2021). Her other films include Vanilla Sky (2001), Blow (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Zoolander 2 (2016), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Everybody Knows (2018), Official Competition (2022), L'immensità (2022), Ferrari (2023), The Invite (2026) and La bola negra (2026). On television, she portrayed Donatella Versace in the FX miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Cruz has also modelled for Mango, Ralph Lauren and L'Oréal, and designed clothing for Mango with her younger sister Mónica Cruz. She has been a brand ambassador for Chanel since 2018.
Cruz was born on 28 April 1974 in Alcobendas, Spain, to Encarna Sánchez, an Andalusian hairdresser, and Eduardo Cruz, an Extremaduran car mechanic. Her sister Mónica is also an actress, and her brother Eduardo is a singer and composer. She also has a paternal half-sister. She was raised Roman Catholic. In her childhood, Cruz focused on dance. She studied classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory. She trained in Spanish ballet for three years and in theatre for four years at Cristina Rota's school. Cruz later said that ballet gave her discipline which proved important in her acting career. When Cruz became a cinephile at ten or eleven, her father bought a Betamax machine, which was rare in her neighborhood at the time.
How Penélope Cruz makes money
The film received favorable reviews, and was commercially successful, grossing over $67 million worldwide, although it performed better at the box office internationally than domestically. The film received mixed reviews, but made $200 million worldwide.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (2024-05-06), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
