Penélope Cruz hasn’t been mentioned enough this season for her truly remarkable work in Pedro Almodóvar’s hypnotic thriller Parallel Mothers.
This is her seventh collaboration with the master filmmaker. She had a small role in Live Flesh (1997) and a slightly larger one in All About My Mother (1998). Cruz would then triumph as the lead in Volver (2006), garnering her first Oscar nomination. Three more Almodóvar gems followed (Broken Embraces, I’m So Excited, and Pain and Glory) as well as an Academy Award for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona and a third nomination for Rob Marshall’s musical Nine.
Along the way, Cruz has shown just how eclectic an actor she is by appearing in a slew of Hollywood films (Sex and the City 2, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the remake of Murder on the Orient Express) as well as solid indie fare (The Good Night, Elegy, To Rome with Love).
She just starred opposite Jessica Chastain in the spy movie, The 355, and will be featured in Official Competition opposite Antonio Banderas as well as Emanuele Crialese’s L’immensità, both being released later this year.
In Parallel Mothers, she is braver and more nuanced than she ever been (and that is saying a lot) as Janis (named after Janis Joplin), a woman who finds herself in two very different but equally harrowing situations. One involves a mother’s need to hold on to a child, no matter the cost. The second is about healing the scars of war, reparations and familial legacy. Cruz delves deep and the results are truly mesmerizing and ultimately sublime.
Awards Daily had the pleasure of speaking with her about the film, the performance and the future.
