Penelope Cruz looks at us . He does it from the cover of the catalog of the San Sebastian Festival, from the bus shelters and from a huge billboard in front of the Victoria Eugenia theater. And, really, it calms.

His is a serene look that has nothing to do with either the Big Brother gossip inspection or the reproach of sad politicians. It is not even fatal as are the fatal looks of fatal women. Neither seductive as seducers are the models of permanent vacation announcements. She seduces by principle, by conviction , by pure fatality, by work, by insistent, because, in reality, she has always been there. Looking at us. From Ham, ham , in 1992, to The Wasp Network , which is his last job. We think we look at an actress, but no. It is she who marks the times , who decides when it's time to get excited, when to laugh and when to look the other way. It is she who looks at us.

The San Sebastian Festival now decides that this look deserves an award, one more , a Donostia Prize that has the form of street furniture and that comes after an Oscar and three Goya. And although it seems redundant, almost useless, strive to illuminate with a trophy that looks like a lamppost what already has light is, in addition to being cheesy, just so be it; because it is fair that not so much the obvious as the fair is rewarded.

"I had doubts," he says, "when they called me for the prize. Maybe it's too soon ... But as my way of thinking a bit like Almodóvar's characters, I said to myself: 'Shut up, shut up, it won't be that something happened to me . ' And I accepted it. " He accepted that and be the same image of the festival. Not in vain, here it has already been, as he recalled in the press conference, with people as diverse as Bigas Luna, Sergio Castellitto and Fernando León de Aranoa . And put to memory, he remembered if not everything, yes many things: when he collapsed just finished his first film (" What if it was the last? "); when he communicated to his family his decision to be an actress ("I thank you for not laughing at me"), and already put, when I was a child I played alone for the pleasure not so much of being another as, he says, "feel free. .. and another".

And until now. If the merit in what time has taken to call art could be quantified, few like it can boast of more . From Sara Montiel, to mention the most Sara of all the Saras, no one had traveled so outside of Spain and with such recognition. Hollywood, Italy, France, Alcobendas ... "My advantage is that I never took the suitcase and went on an adventure . The first time I went to work with Stephen Frears to Los Angeles I did it with a round trip ticket. And always I have been clear that I did not want to leave my career in Spain, "he says.

The result is that his gaze, as in San Sebastian, is everywhere. Even in Kefalonia, Greece, where Captain Corelli's mandolin was also shot with Nicolas Cage and looked. Everywhere they know about her, about her work, and everywhere, just look at her. Then, and only if necessary, act. In the film he has just presented, The Wasp Network , by Oliver Assayas, also traces the Cuban accent and bustle with a grace very close to mastery. But that is in addition. What matters, we said, is the look.

Be star

On one occasion, Pedro Almodóvar, the one from 'Pedrooo', said about her that she would have loved to record the moment when during the filming of Nine , by Rob Marshall, she met Sofia Loren. He also said that his career reminded him of Claudia Cardinale's. She returned the compliment with her character from Raimunda in Volver and with that of Jacinta in the recent Pain and Glory .

It is not clear when the girl born in the Madrid neighborhood of Alcobendas in 1974 decided to become a star. Maybe it was, as she likes to remember, the day she went to see me Tie me up! . He did it from the height of 13 years. I didn't have the statutory age that a movie like that and a moral like ours demanded. She pretended to be older than she was and was dazzled . Nothing was helped. He watched the movie and from there he looked at the same world.

"With Almodóvar," he said after reviewing his collaborations with Trueba and Bigas Luna , "the relationship is very special. We are family. We know what we think just by looking at each other." The look again.

Or maybe it all started when he started ballet. In the rigorous discipline he was employed for 17 years and from it he learned to suffer. And to work. "The ballet taught me a military attitude: the necessary hours are worked regardless of whether it is cold or hot ... And there I continue." Or maybe it all started before. Long before. From the catalog of the festival he looks at us. And that is enough. The first was the look. And now the Donostia Prize.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Pedro Almodovar
  • Penelope Cruz
  • movie theater
  • culture

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