Penélope Cruz is opening up about her film roles, her personal life, and her relationship.
The 52-year-old The Invite actress got candid for a conversation with PORTER, out now.
During the interview, Penélope spoke about her latest project The Invite and an upcoming untitled Nancy Meyers film, experiencing the loss of her father, women’s health and her own health scare, parenting with husband Javier Bardem, and her relationship with her younger sister.
See all the highlights from Penélope Cruz…
On Pína, the character she plays in Olivia Wilde’s A24 film The Invite:
“She’s bright, she’s deep, she’s complicated, but she is also unstable. As a psychologist, she has to inspire people to be stable, but it hasn’t been easy for her, which is probably why she chose that profession. She’s like a little shark, observing them.”
“The scene where Pína talks about perimenopause was not in the script. I wanted to bring that to her. We were sitting around the table for 10 hours a day, the four of us actors with the two writers [Will McCormack and Rashida Jones]. It was a really intense, beautiful time. I proposed that speech because I felt like, if we really want her to be a good therapist and sexologist, she’s going to understand about female hormones, the effect on the brain. I said: ‘If she is going to talk about sex, she has to talk about this.’”
On delivering a standout moment with Pína comparing women’s menopausal ovaries to “empty ballsacks flapping around in the breeze”:
“Seth [Rogen] knew the line was coming, but he didn’t know what I was going to do with the olives. It was really so funny to see his face.”
On why she is drawn to mysterious characters:
“It’s the influence of the women in my life. My grandmothers, my mother, they didn’t have time to worry about what others were thinking about them. I want to honor the women I knew.”
On women’s health:
“It’s shocking that, over decades, we’ve stuck to the same information about how women’s bodies work. Look at funding for investigation into any illness that affects only women. We don’t get even half the investment. It is a level of control or suppression.”
On her own brain aneurysm health scare:
“I have had many scares like that. Fortunately, I’m fine, it was a false alarm, but I worry about staying healthy, taking care of myself. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I really don’t party. Without health, we have nothing. You talk about real equality? Why don’t we start with health?”
On the death of her father:
“I was doing Zoolander when my father died. We were shooting Friday night. He died at two in the morning. Really young, a heart attack out of the blue. I remember being so close to passing out from the shock. […] On Monday morning, I had to be on set again, trying to make people laugh, shooting a comedy. […] Two weeks before that, the same thing had happened to Ben Stiller with his mom. The film couldn’t stop for him, or for me. Every time I see Ben, I think, ‘Wow, what we went through.’”
On motherhood and the impact of social media:
“It is important to name it. It is so difficult to be a teenager right now, what the boys are being fed, what they are being tricked into thinking. It is a type of manipulation that confuses even adults. With teenagers or children, it is a very dangerous weapon.”
“I remember puberty being a very challenging time for me. I don’t know what my life would have been if, in that time, I had been given a phone with all the horrors of social media.”
On parenting with her husband, Javier Bardem:
“As parents, you have to work much harder to create the right atmosphere at home. My parents had me so young that I grew up being able to talk to them about everything. I want the same thing in my relationship with my kids. To create a safe environment where they feel that they can ask all the questions and share whatever they need to. And I will listen without judgement.”
On her younger sister:
“My sister and I share a love of fashion. We still exchange things, I love going in her closet. She’s very generous, but she tells me: ‘Don’t leave things a mess if you touch the bikinis!’”
On her new Nancy Meyers project:
“I think there could be so many movies made about movies. In this one I play two characters, because I play an actress. You see the movie inside the movie.”
For more from Penélope Cruz, head to PORTER.
Find out more about the Nancy Meyers film.
The post Penélope Cruz Reveals She Suffered a Brain Aneurysm Health Scare, Reflects on Family & Motherhood appeared first on Just Jared - Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment.