LOS ANGELES (By
Sue Zeidler, Reuters)
February 22, 2009
Penelope Cruz became the
first Spanish-born actress to win an
Oscar by taking the best supporting
actress award on Sunday for her role as
tempestuous artist Maria Elena in Woody
Allen's romantic comedy "Vicky Cristina
Barcelona."
With rages that send her limbs flying
madly and whispers that seduce all
within reach, Penιlope Cruz swims in a
sea churning with emotions to create the
extraordinarily troubled Maria Elena in
Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina
Barcelona." She's late coming into the
film, but it's never better than when
she is on screen as a woman torn between
a love she has lost and a tangle of
needs she can neither control nor
ignore. In Cruz's hands, Maria Elena as
the not-to-be-forgotten ex-wife dances
exquisitely on the edge of insanity, and
for the fearless courage of that
performance she deserved to win.
Cruz, 34, thanked both Allen and
Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar
for their roles in shaping her career
and dedicated the gold statuette to the
actors from her country.
"Thank you Woody for trusting me with
this beautiful character. Thank you for
having written over all these years some
of the greatest characters for women,"
she said.
With her Oscar win, Cruz, joins
fellow actresses Dianne Wiest and Mira
Sorvino in scoring best
supporting-actress Oscars for their
performances in Woody Allen films.
"I grew up in a place called
Alcobendas, where this was not a very
realistic dream," said Cruz.
Dressed in a 60-year-old ivory Pierre
Balmain vintage gown and fighting back
tears, Cruz asked anyone had ever
fainted while accepting an Oscar. "I
might be the first one."
Born in Madrid to a hairdresser and
an auto mechanic, Cruz got her big break
in the Spanish film industry in 1992
with "Jamon Jamon."
She captured the attention of the
Oscar-winning Almodovar, who cast her in
various movies including the 2006 film "Volver,"
which earned her a best actress Oscar
nomination for her turn as a woman who
kills her abusive husband.
That nod made Cruz the first Spanish
woman to be nominated for a best actress
Academy Award for a non-English speaking
role.
Cruz thanked Almodovar for "having
made me part of so many of his
adventures."
Cruz's Oscar win on Sunday follows a
British BAFTA award and other U.S.
critics awards this season for her
performance in "Vicky Cristina
Barcelona" as the fiery ex-wife to a
bohemian artist portrayed by Javier
Bardem who has wooed a pair of young
American women vacationing Spain.
Cruz struggled for years to convince
English-speaking movie audiences to take
her seriously after critics panned her
earlier performances in films like
"Woman on Top," and was sometimes
better-known for high-profile romances
with stars like Tom Cruise and Matthew
McConaughey.
'Climbing Mountains'
Backstage on Sunday, Cruz said she is
grateful she was not discouraged by
those earlier "invalidations."
"You have to keep climbing mountains.
It's better not to listen or to engage
in those debates," she said, adding
she is encouraged by how more open the
entertainment industry is to people with
accents.
"It has been changing. We are all
mixed together and has to be
reflected in cinema. I'm happy
finally that door seems to be more open
and not just to me and three other
people, but to a much bigger group," she
said.
