Penelope Cruz Quotes

I never want to lie about my age. If I look around at the actresses I admire, they are all women who have not fought growing older, but embraced it and been proud of it – women like Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn.

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.

You cannot live your life looking at yourself from someone else’s point of view.

I hope that I will be able to work all of my life – even when I am older. It’s easier to do that in Europe than in America, because in America it is difficult for older actresses to find work.

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.

All those cliches, those things you hear about having a baby and motherhood – all of them are true. And all of them are the most beautiful things you will ever experience.

Every relationship ends, until maybe you find one that lasts forever.

I am someone who worries a lot. I’m always worrying ‘what if?’ Now I’m a mum – there will be worries for the rest of my life, but they’re not about me anymore.

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.

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 don’t play comedy as comedy. That would be the biggest trap. I think about the characters and their situations. Then you don’t have to worry where the laugh is going to be. But comedy is harder than drama.

I always feel scared and insecure on a film set. I don’t know any other way.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve worried too much. It always bothers me because sometimes you end up worrying more about the worry and you are not resolving things that are right there in front of you. I have been like that all my life, and it’s hard to change.

I realized that when two people function well together at work, it doesn’t matter if they hadn’t seen each other for years. What they had before was still intact.

There is a part of your brain that has to stop when you’re acting. You have to be in the moment and dare to fly. Words can’t be on your mind.

I am living for every day and trying to have less fear, less worry. But I have always worried about everything; it’s in my nature. It’s the thing that makes me suffer the most.

I love Spanish food. My diet is the Mediterranean diet, which is good food. I eat well.

I have a strong personality, and I say what I think.

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.

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 remember when I got my first opportunity to work in America, I didn’t speak a lot of English, so I only really knew my lines for the movie I was doing.

My favourite actress is Meryl Streep. Oh, and Anna Magnani.

Johnny Depp is so special that he is like a Martian. In fact, that’s what I call him, Martian.

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.

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.

My parents owned a hair salon, so I learned a few tricks there. I can cut people’s hair – if they let me.

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.’

Calcutta is like another world. People there are very special and grateful.

My definition of beauty is without rules. It can be the face of a beautiful 90-year-old woman that is full of stories and emotion. Beauty is what somebody’s eyes communicate.

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.

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.

I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two sentences: ‘How are you?’ and ‘I want to work with Johnny Depp.’

I like roles that people don’t recognize me in.

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.

In Spain, actresses work until they are old. That’s my plan.

I’m strong and opinionated. Those qualities brought me a lot of problems since I was a little girl in school, saying ‘I don’t agree’ and fighting with the children. It’s part of my curiosity for life.

I really like the Caribbean. Anyplace in the Caribbean. I get there, and I feel like a monkey – the perfect state.

I am amazed about how everyone wants to know about my love life. They whisper to me, ‘Tell me the truth? Is it true?’ Who cares? Because we have this job, we are to say to everybody what we do, or with whom we sleep? It’s a bit absurd, but that’s why everybody lies so much.

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.

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.

Unfortunately, I am very aware of editing and I look at the monitor too much. Sometimes the monitor can become your worst enemy because you can, consciously or unconsciously, start editing yourself.

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 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!

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.

As an actress, I really love people like Anna Magnani and Debra Winger. I also think there is nobody better than Meryl Streep.

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 always knew I wanted a family because of the way I grew up. Family has always been the most important thing.

My ambition is to be happy.

I just try not to label myself in any way. I just have an allergy to labels in general. I can tell you that I am surrounded by very strong women and that I really appreciate that, but I’d rather not label myself.

I have a little bit of an addiction to work. So I’m always hiding in the bathroom with my Blackberry to work when I’m on holiday.

I had a very curly perm in the ’80s, thanks to the ‘Way You Make Me Feel’ Michael Jackson video. I liked the girl in it.

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!

I won’t go to places where you’re going to find more attention. I go to the opposite.

I have had a very singular kind of life since I started working so young, so I am very used to traveling, working, taking time for myself.

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 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.

I breastfed my son for 13 months, and I plan to do at least the same with my daughter. That’s an amazing thing for babies, but it’s also really good for the mother because it regulates your body again after pregnancy.

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 don’t know if I believe in marriage. I believe in family, love and children.

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. I had a lot of energy as a child – sometimes too much – and I didn’t know how to channel it. It was making me suffer. It was bigger than myself, and I was very young.

When I was 16 or 17, when I started, I never even considered not doing a project. I just wanted to 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.

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.

I think magic is very related to happiness. So it is not there all the time, but there are beautiful moments of magic in everyone’s life.

I don’t know why, but women in a hair salon share their deepest secrets.