Penelope Cruz Confesses the Pain of Playing “Carla”
Penelope Cruz has played just about every role a woman can accept—from the lusty ingénue in All the Pretty Horses to a pistol-packing baddest-of-bad girls in Bandidas. Never, however, has Cruz performed so spectacularly and seductively as in Nine. No small accomplishment in a film that stars nine of the world’s most beautiful, compelling women.
Cruz’s sultry, sensuous, and provocative burlesque dance instantly became a modern-film icon, rivaling Marilyn Monroe’s classic up-skirt pose from The Seven-Year Itch.
The Academy has recognized Cruz’s brilliance with an “Oscar” nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Most fans, captivated by Cruz’s grace and beauty, cannot tell you the names of the other 2010 nominees. Cruz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2009, earning accolades for her performance in Vcky Cristina Barcelona.
Cruz will appear as a presenter during the 2010 Academy Awards broadcast.
The high price of stardom
Although the spellbinding dance easily convinces viewers of Cruz’s consummate confidence, the actress has been wonderfully forthcoming about her abject terror as she prepared for her role. Everything about the role of Carla, the burlesque director’s mistress, took Cruz well out of her comfort zone. And the filming itself exacted a heavy toll on the actress’s body and psyche. Aching and bruised after the last take, “I couldn’t stop crying,” Cruz nearly wept to The Daily Mail.
In subsequent interviews, Cruz has told all about the pain of preparation and performance.
Appearing last fall on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Cruz openly confessed her fears about singing for the movie: “I was terrified. I never have sung professionally before. Sure, I sing at home,” Cruz giggled, “I have a karaoke machine; but I never have sung in public.”
Cruz told Oprah that, when she first saw the script’s demands for a song and dance, she almost called the director and told him that he could fire her that instant, because she never would be able to do what he requested. In the same interview, she went on to explain how she worked with a dance coach and vocal coaches to prepare for the movie. She rehearsed “hours each day” from late August until they shot her now legendary sequence in November.
Saying more about her preparation for singing, Cruz looked vulnerable as she admitted, “I was even more nervous the day I had to go to Abbey Road to record the song. It is such a legendary place; the Beatles recorded their albums there.” Cruz detailed how she locked herself in her room, saving her voice for the first day of recording, “and that day it did not go well,” she said. “On the second day, when I was a little more relaxed, that was the take that they used for the movie.”
