Actor: Penelope Cruz

Penelope Cruz Sanchez was born on April 28, 1974, in Madrid, Spain, to Eduardo, a mechanic, and hairdresser Encarna. Though a happy child, she was also wilful. “My mother used to give me to my grandmother for the holidays and scream, ‘I can’t take this child’,” says Penelope. As a youngster she threw her boundless energy into dancing and studied at Spain’s National Conservatory before beating 300 other girls in a local talent agency audition. Bit parts in TV commercials followed, but it was 1992’s Oscar-winning Belle Epoque which put her on the map.

She was soon on the A-list of Spanish talent. Pedro Almodovar cast her in Spanish-language films Carne Tremula and in the same year she starred in the psychological thriller Abre Los Ojos, which won several Goyas, Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars.

“A tape appeared on my desk,” says The Hi-Lo Country director Stephen Frears, who cast Penelope in her first major English-speaking role. “I went and looked at it, and there was Venus. She’s absolutely gorgeous. And very, very good, too.”

Since then she’s worked non-stop, yet Hollywood success hasn’t changed her. She still wants to make her family proud and returns to Spain frequently to visit her brother Eduardo and sister Monica, as well as her parents, who are now divorced. She has even flown in for less than 24 hours to spend the day with her grandmother.