Autographed photo of actress Penelope Cruz

Penelope Cruz is the first and only Spanish actress to be awarded an Oscar. It is noteworthy that among the Spanish male actors, the only winner of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award is her husband, actor Javier Bardem. Penelope is also the first Spanish actress to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

When Penelope Cruz first decided to try her hand at Hollywood, she was 20 years old, and she could only pronounce two sentences in English: "How are you?" and "I want to work with Johnny Depp." The actress still believed that she would succeed, and so it happened! But learning the language was not easy for her. When Cruz starred in one of her first English-language films, "The Land of Hills and Valleys," in 1998, she recalled: "I locked myself in the bathroom and cried because I didn't understand what was going on on set. I didn't understand everything the director and other actors were saying."