GWYNETH PALTROW: I was trying to remember when we first met, but I’m afraid I can’t.
PENÉLOPE CRUZ: We had lunch at Madeo in Los Angeles. We were alone and talking about our deepest secrets, as if we had known each other for 20 years. It was around the time I was doing All the Pretty Horses [2000].
PALTROW: Wow. We’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve been through so much together.
CRUZ: And even though we live so far away and don’t spend nearly enough time together, when I see you, it’s like it was only yesterday.
PALTROW: How did you get your first job?
CRUZ: I got an agent when I was 15, and she sent me to a casting for Jamón Jamón [1992]. And I got the job. For both Javier and I, that was the movie that actually started both our careers.
PALTROW: You were 17 when you did that?
CRUZ: I think I was, but I was lying so much about my age that I can’t be sure.
PALTROW: Most actresses try to make themselves younger, but you were making yourself older.
CRUZ: I’ve spent most of my career trying to make myself older, for different reasons. Journalists have been asking me, since I was, like, 22, “Are you afraid of aging?” That is such a crazy question for a 22-year-old girl or, for that matter, for a 42-year-old. I combat that craziness by refusing to answer the question.
PALTROW: It’s amazing, Hollywood’s obsession with the aging of women. And how much scrutiny we get for being whatever age we are.
CRUZ: My mom worked very hard to raise us, as did my dad, without bullshit. I’ve always had a real sense of rootedness in family and reality. It’s not like I’m proud of the values I have, because I don’t feel like they’re up to me—they just come from the way I was raised. I’m rooted by the things I’ve seen in my mom, the things I admire in her. And in my father. When it comes to talking about aging as an actress, I feel like, “What the fuck? I’m not going to give you even two minutes to honor your question. It doesn’t deserve that.” Something changed when I gave birth to my daughter. I started thinking, “Come on, it’s 2017. Why do women still have to be talking about this? It’s crazy.” That sense only got bigger when I had children.
PALTROW: Of all my friends, I think you love acting the most. When you talk about something you’re doing, when you’re preparing for something, you have this enthusiasm and this passion that, from my perspective, has never waned. Speaking for myself, I don’t feel the same passion for it that I used to.
CRUZ: It’s helped, I’m happy to say, that my ego has gotten smaller over time. I used to be so afraid about what people were going to think of me, if I was going to be accepted, if I was going to be loved. I put a lot of energy into the perception of myself. When I became a mother—almost seven years ago—something very deep changed in me, where I really don’t care about a lot of the stuff I used to care about before. That’s part of growing up, and now I have to go through other tests that life will put in front of me. I have new fears now.
PALTROW: Around the time I turned 40, I felt completely liberated from other people’s perceptions or expectations of me.
CRUZ: I wouldn’t for a second change the way I feel now for the way I felt in my twenties. How I see the world, how I look at acting—everything has changed. It has, in a way, brought me back to the beginning, when I was 4 and loving dancing, loving getting in the skin of other characters and exploring the beauty of human behavior. I get so much happiness from being a student again, from exploring. Whatever happens with the result, if I’ve had that process, I feel like it has been something good, that it has taught me something new. If I’m 80 and I have a new character in my hands and a new story to tell, I’m going to feel that same healthy fear. It’s like food for me.
PALTROW: The other project of yours that I’m dying over is The Assassination of Gianni Versace. I saw pictures. You look incredible as Donatella.
CRUZ: From the moment I got the call from Ryan Murphy, I thought, “Why did you think of me for that character? That’s very … interesting.” I know her a little bit, and I really like her. I had a few questions about how he was going to handle her portrayal, but he’s so classy, and he’s very respectful to people. This is a delicate story, because I’m playing someone who is alive, someone who lost her brother in a horrible way, and someone who still misses him very much 20 years later. I was not used to the rhythm of doing television.
PALTROW: How did you go about preparing to play Donatella Versace? Did you watch interviews?
CRUZ: I worked a lot with a dialogue coach to find the way that Donatella speaks, which is a little different from the way she spoke in the ’90s. The accent that she has, it’s Italian with a very international flavor—very rock ’n’ roll. I didn’t want to do an imitation of Donatella, or a caricature. I wanted to try to capture the essence of who she is.
PALTROW: Did you speak to her about it?
CRUZ: A little bit. I needed that conversation. I really hope that when she sees the show, she’s going to be happy. I’m sure there are going to be scenes that are hard for her to watch, because it’s a lot about the loss of her brother, which, of course, I have so much respect for. I did it with all my love. From that place of devastation, she had to keep this company going in his honor. I don’t know if she ever said this, but it was a way of keeping him alive.
Read the full interview at Interview Magazine.
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