Spanish Actress Moves in on Hollywood

　　Watch out Hollywood! Young Spanish actress, twenty-six year-old Penélope Cruz, has been working her way onto the screen in the United States. Famous for several Spanish films, Cruz has recently launched her career in English-speaking films.

　　Cruz's debuted in 1991 in the Spanish film, "El laberinto griego" ("The Greek Labrynth"). Her first big break was in the 1992 film "Jamón, Jamón" ("Ham, Ham"). She went on to star in "Belle Époque," directed by Fernando Trueba, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1993. Since then, she has acted in about a dozen films. She was awarded the Best Actress Goya Award (the Spanish equivalent of the Oscar) in 1999 for her performance in "The Girl of Your Dreams," also directed by Fernando Trueba.

　　Her most recent Spanish-speaking role was in Pedro Almodóvar's "All About My Mother" (winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1999). In this film she plays a nun who gets pregnant by a drag-queen and ends up being rescued from the convent by the drag- queen's ex-wife. Her most recent English-speaking role was in "All the Pretty Horses," directed by Billy Bob Thornton. She plays a wealthy Mexican rancher's daughter opposite Matt Damon, who plays an American drifter.

　　Her next big English-speaking role is coming this fall. Due to be released at the end of September, "Woman on Top" is a comedy directed by Fina Torres, a director famous for her films about women and their fluctuating emotions. Cruz plays a Brazilian woman, Isabella, who moves to San Francisco after discovering her husband's infidelity. In San Francisco, she fulfills her dream of being a cooking show host on television. Isabella is sexy and irresistible and consequently has a strange effect on her viewing audience!