Penélope Cruz has been acting in Spanish and English-language films for three decades now, her most particular collaboration being with Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar, with whom she has worked with on seven films, two of which gained her nominations for Best Actress. In addition, she has two Best Supporting Actress Oscar noms and won one of them for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (2008). In anticipation of her latest performance in Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” set to release December 25, let’s take a closer look at Cruz’s four Oscar nominations.
Her first Oscar bid came in 2007 for her third collaboration and first leading role with Almodóvar in “Volver” (2006) in which she plays a woman in Madrid protecting her daughter after she stabs her supposed father to death, while also talking to the ghost of her mother to come to terms with her past. The role garnered Cruz much acclaim, sharing the 2006 Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival with her five co-stars Chus Lampreave, Yohana Cobo, Carmen Maura, Blanca Portillo and Lola Dueñas. She then went on to secure Golden Globe, Critics Choice, Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA Award notices before being cited for Oscar, becoming the only acting nominee from a foreign language film that year and the only nomination for “Volver.” She lost all of those aforementioned awards to Helen Mirren, who swept that awards season for “The Queen.”
But Cruz would succeed on her second try at the Oscars two years later for the 2008 Woody Allen romantic comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” though her win was not as locked in at the beginning of awards season. At the time, the narrative was focused on Kate Winslet for the romantic historical drama “The Reader,” who had five previous Oscar nods and was considered overdue. Winslet would beat Cruz at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG Awards for Best Supporting Actress since she was also considered in Best Lead Actress for “Revolutionary Road,” but the tide turned when the BAFTA Awards recognized Winslet in Lead for “The Reader,” which was followed by the Oscars. This gave Cruz the opening she needed and despite having only about 15 minutes of total screen time in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” as an emotionally unstable ex-wife of a man who falls in love with two other women, she would triumph at the BAFTAs for Best Supporting Actress and subsequently the Oscars as the movie’s only nomination.
Her success would quickly continue the year after for Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the Maury Yeston Broadway musical “Nine” (2009) as the mistress of an Italian filmmaker based on Federico Fellini. While the musical film received mixed reviews, Cruz was singled out for her performance, nabbing Golden Globe and SAG citations to go with her Oscar nom, one of four total for “Nine” as it received citations for Best Costume Design for Colleen Atwood, Best Art Direction for John Myhre and Gordon Sim, and Best Original Song for Yeston for “Take It All.” Cruz would lose all her bids in a sweep to Mo’Nique for “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.”
Her latest Oscar notice came 12 years later as a surprise for her seventh and recent partnership with Almodóvar in “Parallel Mothers” (2021) as a woman who realizes her newborn daughter isn’t hers and keeps it from her biological mother, with whom she develops a close relationship with. Despite receiving raves for her performance, winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice International Film Festival, Cruz was not acknowledged at any of the precursor awards despite the movie itself getting Best Foreign Language Film nominations at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs. With “Parallel Mothers” not submitted as Spain’s choice for Oscar contention, it seemed there was not much hope for Cruz, but she pulled out a shock nomination for Best Actress and the film also got into Best Original Score for Alberto Iglesias. Given how uncertain the Best Actress race was with different winners at every precursor, many were wondering if Cruz would pull off a win similar to Marcia Gay Harden for “Pollock,” after having no precursor recognition, but she would come up short to Jessica Chastain for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.”
Now Cruz has another shot for the Oscar with the sports biographical drama “Ferrari” based on Brock Yates’ biography and starring Adam Driver as motor racing driver Enzo Ferrari. Cruz will play Ferrari’s wife Laura Domenica Garello and has already amassed praise for her blazing performance with Guy Lodge of Variety stating she is the “raging storm to Driver’s phlegmatic calm” and Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire commenting that she plays the character with “jilted, internalized rage” and is “her best performance since winning an Oscar for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Cruz has already been recognized with a Gotham Award nomination for Best Supporting Performance, so she is officially on the awards radar and could be a contender for Best Supporting Actress Oscar with how open the field is, when the film releases on Christmas Day distributed by Neon.
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