page_title: Penélope Cruz
section_title: Worldwide recognition, 2006–2009
hierarchical_section_title: Penélope Cruz / Acting career / Worldwide recognition, 2006–2009
caption_attribution_description: English: Penélope Cruz at the 81st Academy Awards depicted person: Penélope Cruz (age: 34.82)
context_page_description: Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress and model. Signed by an agent at the age of 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television, and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón Jamón. Her subsequent roles in the 1990s and 2000s included Belle Époque, Open Your Eyes, The Hi-Lo Country, The Girl of Your Dreams, and Woman on Top. Cruz achieved recognition for her lead roles in the 2001 films Vanilla Sky, All the Pretty Horses, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and Blow. She has garnered numerous awards, including an Academy Award from three nominations.
  She has since appeared in a wide variety of films, including the comedy Waking Up in Reno, the thriller Gothika, the Christmas film Noel, the action-adventure films Sahara and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the romantic comedy To Rome with Love, the crime drama The Counselor, and the mystery film Murder on the Orient Express. She was praised for her roles in Volver and Nine, receiving Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for each. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2008 for playing volatile painter María Elena in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
context_section_description: Cruz appeared alongside her good friend Salma Hayek in the 2006 Western comedy film, Bandidas. Randy Cordova of the Arizona Republic said the film "sports" Cruz and her co-star Salma Hayek as the "lusty dream team" and that they were the "marketing fantasy" for the film. Also in 2006, Cruz received favourable reviews for her performance as Raimunda, a working-class woman forced to go to great lengths to protect her 14-year-old daughter Paula, in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver. A.O. Scott of The New York Times remarked, "With this role Ms. Cruz inscribes her name near the top of any credible list of present-day flesh-and-blood screen goddesses, in no small part because she manages to be earthy, unpretentious and a little vulgar without shedding an ounce of her natural glamour." Likewise, Carina Chocano of The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Cruz, who has remarked that in Hollywood she's rarely allowed to be anything more than pretty, instills her with an awesome resoluteness and strength of character." She shared a Best Actress award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival with five of her co-stars, as well as receiving a Goya Award and European Film Award, and was nominated for the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award, the BAFTA Award, and the Academy Award for Best Actress in a leading role. She was the first Spaniard to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
  In 2007, Cruz appeared in the lead female role in Manolete, a biopic of bullfighter Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez, playing Antoñita "Lupe" Sino. The film was critically panned, and Variety felt that Cruz has "clearly been cast to play the kind of red-hot drama queen she's pulled off infinitely better in the films of Pedro Almodovar." After being shelved since 2007, Manolete (originally shot in 2005) released on demand via cable, satellite, telco and online on 7 June 2011 under the title A Matador's Mistress. She also appeared in The Good Night, playing two characters, Anna and Melody. TV Guide film critic Maitland McDonagh noted that in the film Cruz "expertly mines the contrast between chic, compliant, white-clad Anna and funky, street-wise Melody, who treats [Martin Freeman's character] Gary like the world-class drag he is".
  In 2008, Cruz appeared in Isabel Coixet's film Elegy, which was based on the Philip Roth story The Dying Animal, as the lead female role, Consuela Castillo. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter described Cruz's performance as being "outstanding in an otherwise lame male fantasy [film]." Later that year, she starred in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona as María Elena, a mentally unstable woman, which was praised. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle noted, "But the revelation is Penélope Cruz, who has never been better in an American film. Suddenly, and for the first time, her stardom makes sense. As Maria Elena, José Antonio's gifted and neurotic ex-wife, Cruz is on fire - hysterically funny, abandoned, passionate, poignant, with a performance full of shading and wide in range. She's as fun and as powerful as Anna Magnani, and beautiful besides. Cruz just needed somebody to turn her loose." Likewise, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian singled her out for praise, writing: "Cruz, playing Maria Elena, the passionate and crazy ex-wife of a moody Picasso-ish artist, looks as if she has wandered in from a more hefty film entirely; everything she does and says seems to mean more, count for more. This isn't to say that she gets bigger laughs, or perhaps any laughs, but she certainly walks off with the film". Cruz received a Goya Award and her first Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also received a Golden Globe and SAG nomination. Cruz was the first Spanish actress to ever be awarded an Academy Award in that category and the sixth Hispanic person to ever receive the award.
  Cruz's next film was the kid-friendly G-Force voicing a guinea pig spy named Juarez. G-Force was a commercial success, making over $290 million worldwide. Also in 2009, she appeared in the film Broken Embraces as Lena. Stepha
caption: Cruz at the 81st Academy Awards in 2009
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