Penélope Cruz: 'I Can Fly and Go Far'

Penélope Cruz found herself suffering a panic attack after filming the scene in Broken Embraces when her character decides to try acting. “I don’t know what happened to me that day, but before and after we filmed I could not breathe,” she says—perhaps because the character recalls Cruz’s own beginnings, which she discusses (along with her first meeting with Tom Cruise, but not her relationship with Javier Bardem) in a broad-ranging interview with Vanity Fair.

Cruz, who idolized Pedro Almodóvar as a teen, is now working with the director for the fourth time—but, while staying true to her Spanish roots, she is also finding US success thanks to her work with, among others, Woody Allen and Rob Marshall. When it comes to her personal life, Cruz is tight-lipped—though she denies, in a roundabout way, the rampant rumors she is carrying Bardem’s baby. (More Penelope Cruz stories.)