I have stepped off the relationship scene to come to terms with myself. I have spent most of my adult life being 'someone's girlfriend', and now I am happy being single.

Penelope Cruz

Categorized in : Being Happy Girlfriend Being Single

I came to New York to study ballet and English. by Penelope Cruz

I came to New York to study ballet and English.

ballet study new-york

My plate is full with just acting. I want to focus on that, and t... by Penelope Cruz

My plate is full with just acting. I want to focus on that, and then maybe direct in the future.

focus acting want

As an actress, I really love people like Anna Magnani and Debra Winger. I also think there is nobody better than Meryl Streep.

actresses people thinking

I've worked myself to exhaustion before. I was so young, and I thought I could do everything; it was just too much for my body and my mind.

too-much body mind

Pedro's Almodovar different - very unique, very particular and difficult to compare to anyone else. But I've been lucky with many of the people that I've worked with. I think I've been very lucky with great opportunities - directors like Stephen Frears, Cameron Crowe and Fernando Trueba, as well as Bigas Luna, who gave me my first opportunity. There are a lot of people I would love to work with again. But, of course, I have a special relationship with Pedro and I don't think it's good to hide that.

unique opportunity thinking

I was happy that I finally could play a mature woman, because I started working when I was a teenager and was always playing characters according to my age.

teenager age character

My mother was very passionate about life and she would do anything for us. And she had to fight alone to raise us. We never had a lot of money for extras or anything. She had to work six days a week, and then she would do breakfast, lunch and dinner. She was a super-woman! For me, I don't know how she did it with three kids.

fighting mother kids

When I was on the set, I was not talking on the phone or reading anything else. I was just reading things, listening to music and watching things that had to do with the state of the scene. So it would be a constant, maintaining for the whole day that state. If I had an hour off for lunch, I would put on a movie or something that would help me stay in that area. And at the end of the day, I was like a zombie.

zombie reading listening

I'm very honored to play one of the women in the movie Volver, and it was special acting with all those other talented actresses. Carmen Maura is a legend and it was a thrill to make a movie with her.

honored acting special

Pedro AlmodÃ³var asked me to watch italian films again as homework to look at the energy of all those women from the Italian neo-realist films. A lot of them had those characters that represented motherhood. For some reason, in the '50s in Italy, the mother figure was very important - and my character needed to have that energy.

italian mother character

I realized that when two people function well together at work, it doesn't matter if they hadn't seen each other for years. What they had before was still intact.

i-realized together people

Being actors we are dealing with the beauty and complexity of human confusion, no? And we are always trying to get answers.

complexity confusion trying

It's fun for women to be in a Western. And I had to learn how to handle the guns. I would walk around with the fake guns. It takes a lot of practice to twirl them around - but I can do a lot of crazy things now from movies. I can gallop a camel! Give me a camel, I know how to start it and stop it!

I won't go to places where you're going to find more attention. I... by Penelope Cruz

I won't go to places where you're going to find more attention. I go to the opposite.

opposites attention

In Spain, actresses work until they are old. That's my plan. by Penelope Cruz

In Spain, actresses work until they are old. That's my plan.

spain actresses plans

Maybe I'll make one movie a year, maybe two, but it's not going to be more than that because I have other priorities now.

priorities two years

I love the Italian culture, it's a beautiful culture. I love the language, the Italian people, their music, their attitudes... I just love it! Sometimes, I think I'm an Italian trapped in a Spanish woman's body.

italian attitude beautiful

In my house every Sunday, everybody was cleaning the house. There was always music, and everybody was dancing, sometimes naked around the house. Not hippie, but very free.

sunday dancing hippie

I'm not like Puff Daddy, I hold my own umbrella. by Penelope Cruz

I'm not like Puff Daddy, I hold my own umbrella.

umbrella puff daddy

I think it will be better when I get involved with someone again, because I made this time for me. I haven't really been single for a while, and I think it's been good for me, to lose the fear to be like this.

being-single made thinking