Almodóvar is shooting his films in the series, so even though Janis does not know what tragedies are in the corner, Cruz was very aware and started counting the days until her most difficult scenes. “I knew it would be hardcore adrenaline, perhaps the most intense take of all time – and it was,” he said. However, he kept all these emotions in check, as Janis had to do, until a climax turned out to be so painful in the film that Almodóvar had to help a wrecked Cruz get off the floor afterwards.
“I wish you could do it without suffering so much,” Almodβvar told her at the time. But Cruz did not see things that way.
“When I look back, I do not remember it as a pain,” he said, “because it was for her, it was for Janis or for all the women who could be in a similar situation to lose what they love most. . For me it was alive. He is a real creature that he created “.
So when Cruz says “Parallel Mothers” is the hardest thing she has ever done, she means it in a good way: Although Janis and Cruz look so alike at first, playing this woman brought Cruz farther away from herself than she would ever expect. “I have a smile on my face because it gave me so much and made me feel so alive creatively,” he insisted. “I was emotionally tired but at the same time I was enjoying every second.”
ASK THE WORLD who knows best to describe Penélope Cruz, and an adjective always appears. “All my life, I listened to how stubborn I am,” Cruz told me, and then stopped. “I do not know if it is because I am a Taurus.”
In any case, this stubbornness has served her well. When Cruz was 14 years old and wanted to pursue acting, she applied for a youth program in Madrid, run by agent Katrina Bayonas. You had to be at least 16 years old to get in, so Cruz lied. Bayonne, suspecting the lie, gave Cruz a secular scene from “Casablanca” to read, knowing that the young girl would be over her head.
