Venice (AFP)

Penélope Cruz, crowned Saturday in Venice for her role in "Madres paralelas" by Pedro Almodovar, is the favorite actress of the Spanish filmmaker, who has already allowed her to be rewarded in Cannes for "Volver".

The actress toured for the first time with Almodovar in 1997, thanks to a small role in "In the flesh", then in 1999 in "All about my mother".

He then offered her her best roles: Raimunda, mother of a Madrid family, in "Volver", which earned her a nomination for the 2007 Oscar for best actress and a joint interpretation award at the 2006 Cannes film festival. "Madres Paralelas", which opened the 78th Mostra, built on the crossroads of two women who give birth the same day in the same maternity hospital, the Spanish star plays Janis (a nod to Janis Joplin), a forty-something photographer at the tormented fate.

She becomes pregnant with an archaeologist and married friend, who has promised to help her find the burial place of her great-grandfather, who disappeared at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

A tailor-made role for the 47-year-old actress, born in 1974 to a modest family in the suburbs of Madrid.

Her father was a trader and her mother ran a hair salon where she says she learned to observe the captivating behaviors of clients.

Penélope Cruz forms with her compatriot Javier Barden the flagship couple of Iberian cinema.

Both like to remember that they owe everything to the late Spanish director Bigas Luna, who in 1991 brought them together for the first time on the set of the very hot "Jambon, Jambon".

- Gifted for comedy -

She then began in the cinema at 17, while Javier Bardem assumed, at 22, a role of playboy "caliente".

The film was worth to them to share, standing against a pinball machine, a scene of the most steamy.

They then crossed paths on a number of film sets.

For several years, the actress navigated between the deep roles offered in Spain and the light characters offered by American cinema.

In the early 2000s, her American career received a nice boost in the media thanks to her relationship with actor Tom Cruise, whom she met on the set of "Vanilla Sky".

She achieved consecration by winning in February 2009 the Oscar for best supporting actress for a role of artist with an explosive character in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" by Woody Allen.

During the filming, she finds Javier Bardem.

In the summer of 2010, the two married on an island in the Bahamas owned by their friend Johnny Depp.

Both have their stars on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, the city where their first child was born.

It was there that they became the first Spanish actors to win an Oscar: him in 2008 for his supporting role (as a killer) in "No Country for Old Men" by the Coen brothers;

she, in 2009, for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" by Woody Allen.

Although best known for her dramatic roles, the star is also gifted at comedy, as evidenced by her hilarious role in "Competencia Oficial", a self-deprecating film about the flaws of cinema, also presented in competition this year. to Venise.

In this film signed by Argentinian director duo Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, she donned a voluminous red wig to slip into the skin of Lola, a whimsical and wacky director who must deal with the disproportionate ego of the two stars of her film. .

"For me, it was very liberating, very fun to play this wild character, this charming psychopath, at the same time intelligent and completely stupid, without filter and who does not care what one thinks of. she, "she told the press on the Lido.

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