Volver

[MacGuffin]

Making "Volver," Pedro Almodóvar's Online Diary


A man comes up to me while I'm having breakfast in a bar. He tells me he's seen "Bad Education" three times. I thank him, as I normally do.

The first time I fell asleep, the stranger explains.

Did it bore you so much?

No, on the contrary, he says. I was totally into it but I got sleepy and I let myself go. Then, of course, I went to see it again since the bit I had watched left me very intrigued.

And?

I liked it better than the first time but, again, at one point I was so relaxed that I fell asleep once more. And the same thing happened the third time.

So, you still haven't seen the whole film?

Actually, no, I haven't. Now I'm waiting for it to come out in DVD so that I can watch it calmly at home.

This man seems to be a little over fifty, without any particularly striking characteristics. I wouldn't know what a narcoleptic looks like, but he certainly doesn't look like he has the sudden sleep syndrome. And he doesn't seem to be joking either.

Well, I don't know what to tell you, I say.

Don't be offended, he adds, it's just that when I like something a lot it relaxes me so much that I can actually go to sleep. It's a really pleasant feeling, I mean it as a compliment. And, also... I'm currently taking some medication to curb anxiety and the doctor warned me that it could make me sleepy.

Then, there's no doubt, I tell him emphatically, that has to be the explanation. You are falling asleep because of the pills, not because of my film!

Don't you suffer from anxiety, anguish or desperation, he asks, unaware that his words are the lyrics of a bolero. My psychiatrist told me that these problems usually arise when one is around fifty. And, to make matters worse, I'm also appallingly afraid of death.

I point to the newspaper. I've just read an interview with Julian Barnes, the British writer, where he discusses his last book of short stories. Amongst other things he says that the myth stating that maturity brings serenity is a lie. In reality it is more like the opposite...

I agree, what's the title of the book?

"The Lemon Table." It's a collection of short stories about death and the failure of elderly people to achieve serenity. But I'm not old, he tells me.

Nor am I, I say. Or Julian Barnes. But the three of us think that the years haven't granted us that inner peace we heard so much about.

The spontaneous fan goes off to buy the book and I leave for my office where I have a meeting with three women and a screenplay.

2.

The screenplay is called "Volver," and it is precisely about death, but it deals with this subject in a less anguished manner than that of the man who fell asleep watching "Bad Education." More than about death itself, the screenplay talks about the rich culture that surrounds death in the region of La Mancha, where I was born. It is about the way (not tragic at all) in which various female characters, of different generations, deal with this culture.

At the opposite side of my table, at my office in El Deseo, are three of the actresses that will star in "Volver." Each of them embodies an important come back: The most awaited, Carmen Maura. And two additional come backs, full of sense and sensibility: Penelope Cruz, with whom I've worked twice before, an actress and a woman whom I adore both inside and outside of the sets. And Lola Duenas. I worked with Lola in "Hable con Ella"-"Talk to Her" (she was a nurse, a fellow worker of Javier Camara) and I felt like repeating the experience.

I'm extremely agitated about this meeting. Despite the fact that the role assigned to me in this circus is that of the tamer, it doesn't mean that it's easy for me to break the ice. But that's what it means, amongst other things, to be a director (at least, in a European country). I'm the ice breaker, the chimney that heats up the atmosphere, the mother-father-psychiatrist-lover-friend who, with a simple word, can help you regain your self confidence.

Films, the collection of all the processes that make up a film, entail a huge bundle of questions; and thus the adventurous nature of a shooting. The adventure's worth isn't proportional to the number of answers one finds along the way, it is directly proportional to the resistance of the members involved. What actually happens is that the director is driving a train with no brakes, and his job is to make sure that the train isn't derailed. That's how Truffaut saw it.

My first question is always similar: Will I feel the same passion I felt the last fifteen times about the new story? Without an answer to questions such as this one, it is best to avoid getting involved in a new project.

With "Volver" the answer is certainly yes. Once again, I have the feeling of handling a story (fable, treasure and secret) in which I am anxious to engross myself...




This diary entry continues on Pedro Almodovar's website ( http://www.clubcultura.com/clubcine/clubcineastas/almodovar/eng/diario01.htm ), which also includes other entries and is being updated as production continues.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Release Date: June 23, 2006

Cast: Yohana Cobo, Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Premise: After her death, a mother returns to her home town in order to fix the situations should couldn't resolve during her life. Of her family left in the town, her ghost slowly becomes a comfort to her daughters, as well as her grandchild.

[godardian]

After the great All About My Mother and the even greater, career-best Bad Education (also the less masterful but still so wonderful Talk to Her), there's no reason for my anticipatory response to this not to be: 

[w/o horse]

June 23 is pretty soon too.

I'm watching The Flower of My Secret tonight.

Later -

The Flower of My Secret was fucking fantastic.  I can't wait for Volver now.

[MacGuffin]

Almodovar Examines Women in His New Film



Pedro Almodovar returns to women, a subject he loves, in his latest movie, "Volver," starring Penelope Cruz.

"`Volver' is a film of actresses," Almodovar, 56, told reporters after a screening Monday of his tale of troubled relationships among three generations of women.

Cruz's mother, played by veteran Spanish actress Carmen Maura, comes back from the dead to resolve outstanding issues with Raimunda, the beautiful and feisty character played by Cruz.

The reunion takes place after Cruz and her teenage daughter travel from Madrid to their old village in La Mancha, the arid, conservative region of central Spain where Almodovar grew up in the '50s and '60s.

Almodovar described Cruz's character as a "Sophia Loren type of housewife, wearing low-cut clothes, full of life and courage."

"Volver" opens in Spain on Friday and in the United States in June.

"This is a gift from heaven," said Cruz, who has appeared in other Almodovar films. "I will be grateful to Pedro for the rest of my life."

Almodovar is often described as a women's director because many of his movies have revolved around strong, sympathetic female characters a demographic sector he has described as "more amusing and luminous" than men.

He made an international splash with "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" in 1988. "All About My Mother" won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2000 and "Talk to Her" won the Oscar for best original screenplay in 2003.

"Volver" is rich in imagery from La Mancha, depicting its whitewashed villages and traditions that are fading away. The film starts with a shot of women cleaning the tombs of their loved ones at a cemetery.

"I hardly ever go back because there I don't return as an acclaimed director, but rather as a little boy," Almodovar said. "There, I still feel like a little boy."

Apart from the female psyche, Almodovar's plots are full of improbabilities, unexpected twists and an outlandish assortment of characters gays, transvestites, bullfighters and prostitutes.

He addresses other pet obsessions in his new film, such as death, women's loneliness and maternity. He said he wants to tackle them artistically to understand himself better.

"I don't make movies to sort out my problems, but to shake up my own life," he said.

[MacGuffin]

Almodovar says Hollywood "straitjacket" not for him

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar said on Friday that Hollywood's "straitjacket" production system held little attraction for him as a filmmaker when compared to the freedom he enjoys in Europe.

The Oscar-winning director, who has won dozens of international awards with his Spanish language movies has returned to his family roots with the bitter-sweet comedy "Volver" at the Cannes Film Festival and said he has yet to see a proposal for a film in English that he'd like to shoot.

"There is always a temptation to shoot in English. But I was never proposed a film that interested me enough," he told reporters in Cannes after the presentation of "Volver."

"I'm afraid that in Hollywood I would not have the same freedoms as in Europe. If I was to shoot in English, it would not be in Hollywood, but elsewhere where there is less of a straitjacket production system," he said, speaking through a translator.

Almodovar said "Volver" ("Returning") took him back to his childhood in Spain's central region of La Mancha and was largely inspired by his sisters and late mother.

Featuring an almost exclusively female cast, the film tells the story of Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), a feisty housewife, and her sister Sole (Lola Duenas), a hairdresser, who are being visited by the very lively ghost of their dead mother.

Almodovar said talk of appearances from dead loved ones was not unusual in his home village, where women cultivated memories of the departed and spent time tending to graves -- often even their own before they are interred.

"Cleaning my grave relaxes me," one cheerful woman says in the film as others around her scrub, brush and polish their family tombstones.

A FARTING GHOST

Although "Volver" deals with death, betrayal and incest, it also has plenty of comedy as in a scene when the sisters' ghostly mother, played by Carmen Maura, requests a new haircut when she sees her image in the mirror.

"I wanted to show a ghost on a daily basis. A ghost that goes to the bathroom, hides under the bed and even farts in the film," Almodovar said.

The film marks Cruz's return to Spanish cinema after spending the last few years establishing an international career in Hollywood. Cruz has already starred in Almodovar's "All About My Mother," which won an Oscar for best foreign language film.

"There is only one Pedro for me," Cruz said. "I wouldn't have been the same one without him ... It's amazing how he knows how we feel and think ... He has a special eye for that."

The film also reunites Almodovar with Maura after a 17-year split. The actress starred in many of the director's films, including his 1987 "Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown."

"When we met for the first rehearsal, it was like it always had been," Maura said. "I was astonished because I was not sure whether we could have the same chemistry."

[©brad]

he's a machine.

almodóvar films are like great meals. i too, am 

[MacGuffin]

[godardian]

That poster is beautiful. Usually, I prefer posters that don't foreground the visage of the star, but this one is done in a very aestheticizing way. I can't wait!!

[pete]

the poster is like what marie antoinette wishes it was, vintage with class and timelessness.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

[MacGuffin]

Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz
It's six years since director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Penélope Cruz worked together on All About My Mother. They talk about the rehearsal process, their friendship and the many happy returns of their latest film, Volver
Source: Guardian Unlimited

Maria Delgado: Penélope and Pedro, welcome to the NFT this evening. I'd like to start with a discussion about Volver. Volver in Spanish means to go back or to return. I think there's a sense of returning for both of you in this film - for you Pedro, returning to La Mancha and some of the themes of your earlier work, and to some of the stars, such as Carmen Maura and Penélope, with whom you haven't worked in a while. And for you, Penélope, a return to Spanish-language cinema and to working with Pedro. Perhaps you'd both like to talk to us about the sense of returning on this film.

Pedro Almodóvar (with Maria Delgado translating): In effect, there are many returns in this movie. The ones you mentioned - I returned to working with Carmen and Penélope, and I returned to my roots and shot there. In fact that was the main thing for me; that was really very moving, more so than I thought. And also the sense of coming back from beyond, in the character that Carmen Maura plays in the film. But also Volver, if you are familiar with Argentinian music, is a very famous tango from the 30s sung by Carlos Gardel. The song is very important to the movie because it is the song taught by the mother, Carmen's character, to her very beautiful child, Penélope's character, to present during an audition to become a movie star. And when Raimunda sings Volver, it is also very moving because then the mother, Irene, knows that Raimunda remembers her, because she is singing the song that she taught her when she was very young. That was the moment when the mother tried to make her, and one assumes that she was a beautiful child, into a movie star. You know the scene towards the end when the mother says to the daughter, "Have you always had such big bosoms?" and the daughter says, "Yes, since I was a child." So she had been a very attractive child, and the mother had tried to make her even more beautiful for the talent audition. And the mother, without realising it, was creating an irresistible temptation for the father, and he fell into temptation. So Volver is full of meaning.
MD: What about for you, Penélope?

Penélope Cruz: For me it was also a comeback, as you say, in terms of working in my language again after a few years, which I had really missed, and also in terms of working in my country and spending time there. We worked for six months on this movie - we rehearsed for three months and then shot for three. So I felt very blessed to be able to do this in my country, surrounded by my friends and family. But the main comeback, [the thing] that I was really missing, was the feeling of working with him. It had been five years of not working together, and though we stayed in contact because we are very good friends, for me it felt like 20 years, it was too long. I was always comparing everything to working with him, and you shouldn't do that. Once you try it, you get addicted, you're hooked forever. So in every movie that I made, I was always thinking, "What's he going to think of this one?" He's always really present in everything I do.

MD: Did you write the role of Raimunda for Penélope?

PA: She knew the story since the beginning, from the first note that I wrote. But the story always changes a lot during the development. At first I had thought of Penélope for the character of the granddaughter. But during the writing, and even when I had the first draft, I started to think that the granddaughter wasn't important enough - I wanted Penélope to have a bigger part. So I thought she's very young, but biologically she can be a mother and have a 15-year-old daughter. So I rewrote the script five or six times with her in my mind as the mother, Raimunda.

MD: And did you have Carmen Maura in mind for Raimunda's mother?

PA: Usually I don't write the characters with actors in mind. In this case, I wanted to work with Penélope and she was included in the project from the beginning. But for Carmen, the only character that I wrote with specifically her in mind was Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. And Antonio [Banderas], the only role I wrote with him in mind was Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! I worked with them a lot of times, but I decided that I would only put faces on characters when I finished the script. However, Carmen entered my mind when I was writing the moment the ghost [of Irene] appears, and it changed everything that I had written before. At the beginning, the movie was more a comedy about this neighbourhood in Madrid. But when I wrote the ghost's first appearance, I thought this was the story that I was looking for. The character of the ghost started to devour all the rest, converting the central theme of the movie into that of the relationship between the mother and her daughter. So the idea of working with Carmen came immediately as I was writing the first draft.

MD: You've mentioned that you rehearsed for three months before shooting - what did that actually involve?

PA: I'm obsessed with the musicality of the dialogues. The first thing I did was take them to a position where I recognised myself. I've realised that my work with actors is more like that of a theatre director rather than a film director. So we begin by reading around a table, and that's how I establish the tone of the dialogues and what's between the lines. Then these readings become rehearsals, but not on location, and during these readings, I adapt the dialogues to the actors and actresses who are taking on those roles. And I also prepare them physically for the role - I usually have a team of people who work with me on this - but I like to be at the forefront of this, of making them [look like] what the character looks like. This is very important for the actors: to be able to look in the mirror and see that this is the character. My image of Penélope in this was of a housewife, very strong, fighting. But at certain times, and this is something Penélope's brought to the role, she also has an almost childlike vulnerability. There's no tradition in Spanish cinema of splendid housewives - normally they're short and fat. So I took as my image the neo-realist housewives of 1950s Italian cinema - Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, Claudia Cardinale. So it was essential to give Penélope a hairstyle that was backcombed and had height, because she has a very small face.

MD: I think he's forgotten that you're here, Penélope.

PC: No, I'm used to this.

PA: I was very influenced by the makeup of Claudia Cardinale in a film where she had very dark eyeliner. As soon as we hit on that for Penélope, everything changed. It was also very important to have an ample cleavage enhanced by strategically placed medallions, because that's one of the key images of Spanish motherhood, and motherhood is one of the key themes of this film. It was also very important that this woman have an ample arse. The arse is a symbol of optimism. I'm really sorry for those who do not possess a bottom but they can always add something to it. The only false thing that we did was to construct a new arse for her, so that she would have this shape. It wasn't just about the physical thing, it was also about the spirit of the person: Penélope had trained in dance, and so tends to walk upright, very much in the air. But for the character, we wanted someone very grounded, somebody weighed down by life. And an ample arse helps you to be weighed down and be grounded. So rehearsals are part of all this.

MD: Penélope, can we hear it from your side now?

PC: I wish I had him next to me every time I get asked that question about the fake arse. Journalists write that the producers forced me to wear a false arse because I didn't have a big enough one. They didn't understand anything about this. Just as Pedro has explained, it's true, the day I tried that on, I thought I have to keep this and take it everywhere with me, because it would make me walk differently. And it's true, because of the way it made me move, something happened to my energy and I felt more down-to-earth; it really happened. It's like when you find the right shoes for a character. But it's always tricky to talk about these things in an interview because you can sound a little crazy, so I wish I had him with me every time I get asked that question. I've been asked that question about 50 times, all with different theories, and the next question is usually about anorexia or bulimia - they get it so wrong.

PA: The other thing I did was I tried to get the texture and tone of the voice lower. And changing the register of the voice, that takes time, but I thought that it was important that she, as a mother, spoke with a lower register of voice. So preparations are very exhausting, as you can see.

MD [to PC]: How different was working on Volver to Live Flesh for you? In Live Flesh you played a teenage mother, a prostitute giving birth. That was a very small cameo role but in many ways it stole the film, it was an extraordinary opening to the film.

PA: It's like a set-piece, you can separate it from the rest of the movie and it works like a short. It was eight minutes and I have to say she was wonderful in that. Stephen Frears told me that he asked her to be in Hi-Lo Country after seeing that eight minutes.

MD [to PC]: Pedro's like your agent as well as your director.

PC: He's my everything.

PA: I'm telling you this because I want you to know that I'm not the only one who finds her so wonderful in a movie. That moment was set in the 70s - I wanted the child to be born under an unlucky star. I chose to set it on a certain night - the last state of exception announced by the Spanish minister Fraga during the Franco dictatorship - because I wanted that child to be born with very bad luck, under a very bad star. All the clothes that we found for her were second-hand and authentic - but when we put the clothes on her, because it was trendy at the time to dress in the style of the late 60s and early 70s, she looked fashionable; she didn't look like a prostitute, she looked very modern. We didn't know what to do - the clothes were authentic, they were really ugly, but she looked fantastic. So we put a wart on her face to make her uglier.

PC: And I had a little moustache, too.

PA: Yes, that too.

MD: But that was what really worked about the film, it looked like you were casting Penélope against type. She had been playing very glamorous, sexy women, and here she was in a very different role. It showed that you could play something very different and play it very well.

PA: I was really impressed with her after shooting and discovering all these ways to make her more vulgar, more ordinary and not sophisticated. There are no limits to the heart that she puts into her work. Once she's in contact with the spirit of the character, it's very impressive how far she goes with it. I think that I wanted to be a director because I wanted to work with actors - when an actor gets something for the first time, it's like a miracle, and the director is the first witness of that. That is an incredible privilege, and that gives you a kind of pleasure that's addictive. And I experienced an incredible pleasure on Live Flesh, just watching her working for the first time.

MD [to PC]: Was it like that for you on Live Flesh?

PC: Live Flesh was like a dream come true for me. I became an actor so that one day I might have the opportunity to work with him. Live Flesh was my first experience with him, and it was a really beautiful and intense week. We connected immediately and communicated easily. That movie changed my career in many ways - I had never received offers for that kind of character and it was only eight minutes, but after that movie, I got offers like the one from Stephen and for a lot of things in Spain. They would never have been brave enough to consider me because not everybody has his imagination. So it really changed my career for the better.

MD: And then in All About My Mother, you again cast her against type, in the sense that she was playing a nun, and that had its own challenges. How soon in that process did you cast Penélope in that role?

PA: Well, the nun is a lot closer to her character, because she's a very nice girl. But she's also very adventurous. I read in a newspaper about a bunch of nuns who lived in a house and worked with transvestites and prostitutes and drug addicts, trying to help them to establish new lives for themselves. I read that some of these nuns went out to where these transvestites and drug addicts were working and would take out syringes for them; they were incredibly brave because they would get into arguments and discussions with the clients of these people they were working with. I saw all these characteristics in Penélope's character. I wanted a mixture of generosity and innocence, with a little insensitivity and a little craziness. It was actually very easy - we didn't have to change much. The important thing was that she must be very emotional and that she give of that emotion, and the tremendous thing about Penélope is that she has this emotional bank.

MD: And we see that in Volver - we see a real mixture between extraordinary emotions, and you capture those moments when she goes very suddenly from one emotion to another. Was that difficult to do? Was that part of what the rehearsal involved?

PA: She can do it. If she wasn't an actor, I think she would be a madwoman. Because of that very immediate emotion. I'll let her explain it.

PC: He knows me very well. He's been one of my best friends for 10 years so I feel very safe when he says something like that. With this character, I felt able to let the monsters out, to release a lot of things and do something with those feelings that sometimes, even to me, are so contradictory. We all go through that, and I am sometimes like a rollercoaster - a little bit like Raimunda. I'm much more like Raimunda than many other characters I've played that are more sort of monotoned. He knows that and I trust him so much, so I was able to go to those places that were very scary emotionally, but I went trusting because he was always there for us. His generosity was amazing. So we'd arrive on the set with a lot of fear every morning, but our mission was that Pedro had to go home happy at the end of the day. He must not regret that he had that faith in us. All of us actresses would hide in a corner and have conversations about this: "How scared are you today?" "Terrified." "Me, too." "Okay, let's go." But in front of him, we would pretend to be very secure about ourselves. It was great to feel like that again. It was like the first day at school. We had three months of rehearsal - thank God we had that; which director gives you that? - three months, six hours a day, taking care of his actors. That's why you get spoiled because his is a completely different way of working. And the character lives on inside you after those three months of rehearsal. Then you go on the set - you still have that fear and that excitement, but it's a fear that's worth it, because you are full of all the emotions that you need to understand to serve that character on the set. Everyday was so challenging, but it was one step at a time, and all through it, there was that mission: he must go home happy.

PA: Thank you very much, I really appreciate it. But to demonstrate that emotional capacity within the same shot is really amazing, I don't know how you do it. She can be screaming and then immediately be crying like a child. I don't know if you're even conscious that this is a very strange capacity.

[audience laughs]

PA: I mean it is very strange for the rest of us and is something very difficult to do.

PC: That's what we as actors get asked all the time and it is very difficult to put in words. We are aware of it and intellectually we cannot even understand it. For me, it has to be full of truth and it has to connect. I don't do substitution games and I don't think about somebody else because that's really dangerous and you can really go crazy. Just find the truth that connects with you, and Pedro helps us so much with that. Everything, in every scene, we had material to grab for us to feel connected to those characters and to the truth. It's so beautiful when you have the material, a script like that, that you find inspiration everywhere.

MD: Is it different for you to be working in your maternal language again?

PC: It's different, yes, it's a relief.

MD: Do you feel like a different actor when you work in your native tongue?

PC: When I work in a different language, I feel the extra tension - of working with facial muscles that are not used to making those sounds in English or other languages, and of having your teacher next to you - it's very much like a torture sometimes, the process of trying to get rid of an accent. So you get that tension from the preparation, and tension is not a friend of acting. So, of course I feel very relieved working in my language, of not having that obstacle there that can often close off the emotions. So this is what I'm doing, working on it so that I can work on an English-language set with more freedom, without thinking about the dialogue so much.

MD [to PA]: When Bad Education came out, you spoke about women inspiring you to write comedy and men to write tragedy. Do you still think that's the case?

PA: Yes, I'm conscious of that. I don't know why - maybe that should be a question from a psychiatrist. But it's true that when I write about women, I can use more humour than if I write about the male universe. Perhaps it's because that's the gender I belong to, perhaps I'm more interested to show the darkest places of myself, and I don't joke about it. But it's true. So after Bad Education, I wanted to go back to the female universe that I feel much more comfortable in.

MD: The great Spanish dramatist Garcia Lorca used to write great roles for women because, he said, there were much better actresses than actors in Spain. Is that part of it as well?

PA: Absolutely. I know what Lorca said more than 60 years ago, and it's still true. Maybe it's the culture, maybe it's the cliché of Latino machismo, but the Mediterranean male character is more dull than the female character. Women are more surprising and they have fewer prejudices. Perhaps it's because they were condemned to be silent for centuries, so they create inside them a much richer world. In many cases, that is true - you can find good actresses of every age in Spain, but not actors.

MD: And you've got actresses from very different generations in this film - you've got Chus Lampreave as Aunt Paula; Carmen Maura, who's not afraid to play 60 and an even older woman, as when she first appears in the movie with very grey hair; and Blanca Portillo, appearing in a film of yours for the very first time - it's a revelatory performance from her. You're very good at creating the ensemble cast rather than focusing on a star performer.

PA: I was very lucky with the six actresses in this - they behaved like a family when we were shooting, and the camera took to that, the camera is very sensitive to that. We would rehearse a lot and they were living together for months - so it was very impressive that, even though they are all very different physically, for example Lola Dueñas and Penélope, they even looked like sisters. They reminded me all of the time of my own two sisters, who are also very different physically. They looked like a real family.

MD: Your sisters were advisers or consultants on the film, weren't they? So this was very much a family film in many ways.

PA: Absolutely. A lot of things were inspired by events in my childhood. This is a contemporary film, but things haven't changed much in the village where I was born. During the shoot, I would call my sisters and ask, "What did our mother say in this situation?" and they would tell me whole lines. They told me what they did in the kitchen because they're always making food or serving food. So all my research was done by talking to them on the telephone, because they keep the culture of my childhood alive.

MD: And the gastronomy, too, because the food is shown with such a relish in this film.

PA: All the food that appears in the film was real and made by my sisters, and eaten by the crew.

MD: Your mother was present in your earlier films - she actually acted in some of them - but you've said that she was very present for you in this one as well.

PA: Yes. At least half the dialogues between the women in this film are directly inspired by conversations I had with my mother. Something that might not have as much resonance for English-language audiences is that they speak in an old Castilian, which is very different from academic Castilian, but is very much a feature of La Mancha. All of that mode of speaking I remember from my mother.

MD: This seems like a good moment to open this out to the audience.

Question 1: Wonderful film. Could you talk a little bit more about the rehearsal period, and the incredible ensemble spirit that you managed to build in the cast?

PA: Well, I've already said quite a lot about it but never mind. Each actor is a very different person, and each one has to be directed very differently. So I've spoken about how I worked with Penélope on her character. With the others I worked on the musicality of the dialogue, which as I've explained is very different because it's Manchegan. Then, depending on the actor, the rehearsals went one way or another. With Carmen, she's an actor that I know very well and we'd worked together a lot in the past. As soon as we'd fixed the physical appearance of her character, we didn't rehearse much - she just wanted to get on and shoot it. With Lola Dueñas, it was very different - she went to my village, spent time there and spoke to the women there about the themes relating to this film, so by the time we started rehearsals for the film, she had already transformed herself into that character. With Blanca Portillo, it was very different again because she doesn't have much experience of working in film - she's largely a theatre actor, so she's used to working in a grand arena, on a large stage, where the gestures have to be larger. It's very different when you're working in close-up. But even though film and theatre are very different disciplines, Blanca very quickly understood what cinematic time and space means and involves. I really wanted her to be that lonely, neighbour figure, and she connected with that immediately. She'd just come from a role where she played a priest during the Inquisition - her hair had been shaved for that role. Originally I'd wanted to put a wig on her for the film, but we grew so used to her hairstyle during rehearsals that in the end that's what we opted to have in the film. It was very important also that they have in front of them the original characters from which I'd taken my inspiration for those roles - so for the wake and cemetery scenes, we hired women from the town. Even though these women were not used to being in a film, of having all the paraphernalia of a film crew around them, they actually forgot that they were being filmed. So there were moments when, for example, at the wake, when Agustina is explaining to Sole what's happening, they were actually intruding and saying, "No, don't say that. You'll only upset her and make her cry." So when Lola/Sole does cry, they said, "Well, I told you." It was very interesting - it was like there was a mirror between the women and the actresses, the one reflecting the other. There was a moment when reality and fiction absolutely fused. And that was very moving. As for Yohana Cobo, who plays Paula, the granddaughter, I did a lot of tests with her. But what I needed, and this is something Yohana has in herself, was a glance, something in the eyes that spoke of pain. I don't know how she can have the experience to have that kind of look, but I wanted her to be present in many scenes but not participate.

MD: You wanted her to be a witness.

PA: Yes, and everything really affects her but she has to be listening in silence. That's very difficult. I didn't know how to show that, but then I saw that she listens very well. You might think to play someone just listening would be easy, but it's not at all. So I liked very much how she would be present, like a witness, and I decided to leave her like that.

Question 2: What were the main changes between the script you started rehearsals with and the finished film?

PA: I'm going to go with Answer C, which is the shortest, since Answer A is very long-winded, although very amusing. Well, in the first version, the guy who owns the restaurant was a very important character. The tone was very different, too - it was much more of a comedy. So I had to create problems for her, to keep the action going once the restaurant owner had disappeared, so what better plot than to get rid of her husband, so that she would then have to dispose of his body. But to achieve that, she had to have the help of the neighbours. And that's why we gave new importance to the roles of Raimunda's neighbours. When the film crew arrives, each day the neighbours would bring produce from where they came from, so there'd be a new gastronomic menu each day. Each evening, the neighbours would be entertaining the film crew, performing and singing, and gradually this club became the hot spot of Madrid, the place to be. So this made it very difficult for Raimunda to get rid of the body. But then when the script was at a very advanced stage, I wanted to give her an additional difficulty, which was the arrival of her mother. When her mother arrives, she really devours the action as I mentioned earlier. What I realised was that I was much more interested in her relationship with her mother than with her neighbours. So that whole notion of this very poor part of southern Madrid becoming a hotspot, almost like in a musical comedy - that all shifted. I left only the minimum there that would help Raimunda to get rid of the body.

Question 3: How was it working with Carmen Maura after such a long time? Was it as easy as it was in the 80s? Or did you have to establish a new relationship?

PA: It's been 18 years since we last worked together. The last time was on Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. It was a very hard shoot and we fought. Then we spent two or three years without speaking to each other. And that's when the Berlin wall fell. Soon after that I was at an awards ceremony and I had a piece of the Berlin wall in my hands and I made a public declaration, saying that if this symbol of hate could come down, then surely our friendship could be mended. And that solved it. So I'd been keen to work with her again for a while, and when I wrote this role, a character who was the same age as Carmen, I thought of her immediately. There was also the worry about whether our past chemistry would return, because there was something miraculous about that. But as soon as we started shooting, we realised that nothing of that chemistry had been lost over the years.

MD: We have time for one more question.

Question 4: I'm very aware that in all your films, quite often the strong female character is seen wearing red at specific points in the film. So whenever I watch one of your films, I almost wait for it - to see a red dress, or red cardigan or red shoe. It's like a treasure almost. Is that intentional or is that just me?

PA: The colour red is present in all my films and my films on the whole are very colourful. I use it in a very sensual way - irrespective of cultural differences it is a very significant colour. In Spain it represents hate, love and fire, blood. In Japan, it is the colour of those condemned to death. So it's the colour of humanity. Many times they ask me about the use of colour in my films. And my mother, I only realised this after making a number of my films, had been dressed in mourning for about 35 years, including the time that I was conceived and born. So from about the age of three, when she lost her own father, she had been dressed in black. So when I was born, it was almost like a response to having to wear that drab colour for more than 30 years.

MD: I'll remind you, Penélope's wearing black at the moment.

PA: But my mother didn't wear Chanel.

[audience laughs]

MD: Before I finish, can I ask you if you have a future collaboration planned? Will we see the Almodóvar and Cruz show on our screens again in a couple of years?

PA: Oh yes, I hope so.

PC: I hope so too.

PA: I am sure we will be shooting together again. For the moment, I'm promoting this movie around the world and don't have much time to write. But I have two stories at different stages of development. In both of them, there's a character for her. [Cruz rubs her hands in glee; audience laughs] I have to finish the script and like the script first, because if I don't have the right spirit I can't say that I am going to make this movie. But for the moment, she is absolutely in my imagination, and when I'm writing, I'm thinking about her.

Question 5 (in Spanish): Pedro, I have no question. I would just like to give you a kiss.

PA: Why don't you blow me a kiss?

Questioner: No, I want to give you a kiss in person.

PA: Okay then, come on. It's like an award.

[Young man from audience runs onstage and kisses PA on the mouth and steals a quick embrace]

PA: I'm easy.

[audience laughs]

MD: Thank you very much Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz.

[godardian]

Question 5 (in Spanish): Pedro, I have no question. I would just like to give you a kiss.

PA: Why don't you blow me a kiss?

Questioner: No, I want to give you a kiss in person.

PA: Okay then, come on. It's like an award.

[Young man from audience runs onstage and kisses PA on the mouth and steals a quick embrace]

PA: I'm easy.

[audience laughs]

...awww. Just awww. I can't wait for the film, of course. And I'm so glad that Holmes got sucked into the Tom Cruise void instead of Cruz. I have this feeling that there are career repercussions for anyone who gets Cruised, and Holmes is nobody's muse, so....

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive Interview : Penelope Cruz
Source: Moviehole

Penelope Cruz looks radiant and relaxed, as we chat on the patio of Toronto's Intercontinental Hotel. There seems to be a momentum building these days for an actress who has had her share of ups and downs. But now there's the dreaded Oscar buzz permeating through the industry for La Cruz's performance in Pedro Almodóvar's satiric family comedy, "Volver". But the actress prefers to take a laid back, pragmatic approach to the buzz surrounding her. "You can be flattered about it because that's already an award, to get that kind of love from people from a movie that they love so much - and for sure it doesn't happen in every movie, because I've been on the other side too, you know," says Cruz, laughingly. In a career that includes over 30 films, the 32-year old admits that she has "gotten some good reviews in my career and some bad ones, and I know what it feels like being on both sides. This one is the most extreme experience until now in a positive way, so you can look at it for what it is and be flattered about it but you cannot expect anything. I cannot assume that it's going to happen because then you can be disappointed if it doesn't, so I don't want to think about it."

In "Volver", Cruz plays Raimunda, a working class mother of a precocious teenage daughter, who lives in a council apartment in the city with her lazy husband. When her aunt dies, Raimunda returns for the funeral to her native village in the country. There she joins her sister Sole (Lola Duenas) for the mourning, and both of them are very disturbed to hear gossip that their mother - presumed dead in a fire with her husband some years ago - has recently been seen in the town. Being a superstitious lot, Raimunda and her family put this down to a ghostly apparition and return to their normal lives in the big city. Soon her slovenly husband becomes too much to bear, and when an unusual solution is found to this problem, Raimunda is off on her own, unique adventure, eventually finding herself as the unlikely manager of a neighbouring restaurant, coping with a cancer-stricken friend, as well as her ditzy sister who may or may not still be seeing apparitions of their deceased mother. All of this comes on top of Raimunda's own, dark secret. Cruz, who established herself in Hollywood for a disparate array of films that garnered mixed responses, said that while it was a release to work again in her own language, Spain has always remained her home, despite the media-obsessed relationships she had with Tom Cruise and Mathew McConaughey. "In terms of working in my country I never made the decision of not working there and I never left Europe for America. So I've been combining those things, working in four languages, trying to create the career that I want to have, and trying to take advantage of speaking those languages instead of looking at having an accent like a big problem."

Ironically, in the case of Volver, Cruz may speak Spanish – but with a regional accent. "We were working in Spanish but we still had to do all the training with the accent, so there is always something, but I love that. The more difficult the character is the more I love it, because the more opportunities you have to get to do something."

The on-screen relationship and friendship between Cruz and Almodòvar goes back to 1997's "Live Flesh", with the pair re-teaming for 1999's "All About My Mother". It's a relationship that has given Cruz the opportunity to show off what she is truly made of, so of course it is no question that when the director calls her up for a new film, she accepts without hesitation. "Even before reading it he knows that I trust him completely, so I don't need to read it to say yes. However, when I read it I was so happy that he was giving me that character and I knew it was an amazing opportunity for my career." Cruz says that this particular woman in Volver was important to her, because "I felt like I knew women like that, and I love that she refuses to be a victim, I love the dignity that Pedro gave her in the script, and I just wanted to give her that." In preparing to play one of the most complex and colourful female characters of her career, Cruz also looks different, slightly more buxom. "I only ate all that I wanted because I could not lose any weight for the character. So I gained like 3 or 4 kilos, and we rehearsed for three months, then there were a lot of hours of looking at the dialogue and adapting all the characters – sometimes different dialogue to each one of us. We would then do costume fittings like months before we would shoot and start creating the look of each character. I was also taking cooking lessons because I specifically handle the food in the movie and he's very precise with those things. He wants everything to be perfect, and I love that a director who is that demanding."

Asked to what extent Almodovar has changed over the years, Cruz says that "For me every film has been amazing and better and better every time. It's been great and I know how generous he is, but it always surprises me, when he does certain things. For instance, if something is not working he will tell you the truth, and if something is working he takes the time to call you home to tell you that he saw dailies and how grateful he is about what you did. That always surprises me with how busy he is on a set he takes time for those things." While in her early Hollywood career, the still ravishingly beautiful star was known for her looks, often dismissed, at least early on, as another pretty face. But it seems that those days are well and truly behind her. "I feel like I have played a few characters that have made me able to demonstrate where I wanted to go as an actress." Cruz adds that in the 35 movies she has done, ", even the ones that have not been successful they have taught me something, and I feel grateful because they help me stay in the game." For the actress, staying in that game means "just keep going, and there are about 4 or 5 that have been positive in terms of how they were perceived. But Volver has been the most complete experience where it's been embraced by critics and audiences alike."

Yet Cruz has no regrets about her Hollywood career which has certainly had its fill of disappointments. "I think that would sound ungrateful if I would say that somehow the work in America was less interesting than my European work. I think I have worked with great people here that have given me great opportunities, but it is so happens that the character in Volver is more difficult and requires more. When the character is more difficult you have more chances to prove what you can do as an actor and you cannot do that by yourself, as you need the trust of a person that writes that for you and gives that to you. But here, I feel like I've worked with amazing people here like Cameron Crowe, and Stephen Frears – people that I really respect and want to keep working with, so I feel I've been very, very lucky to be able to work with them."

Always of fascination to the media for a variety of reasons Cruz, who never discusses her personal life, admits that both the Spanish and American media treat her equally. "It's all the same and it's all periods of time, in that for now for a one month period you're here, now you're going to be that for four months. It's always people trying to put you in different boxes, but as long as you don't believe it yourself, then you're fine. I believe you are the only one that can stop yourself, and for the same reason you should not believe either all the positive stuff. You are always the same person trying to learn and grow – at least that's how I look at my career." And Cruz, who was a teenager when she first started acting, says she remains all too aware of her constant growth and transformation. "I think every day changes you a little bit and makes you learn something new. Now maybe from the outside that change can be seen like a silent thing, but I think we're constantly moving forward, evolving, changing and learning." read material, be a little bit more picky with what I do next, try to spend less time on a movie set and more time creating and developing things. I bought the rights of a book last year and I'm a very persistent person so I feel like I can put a lot of my energy into that and not spend the whole year on a movie set, maybe shoot a little less and use more of my time for other things."

[MacGuffin]

Penélope Cruz: All About Volver
Source: ComingSoon

There's little question that actress Penélope Cruz is one of Spain's most beautiful exports, but who knows if any of us would have ever heard of her if not for her breakout role in Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother in 1999, which made her a hot commodity in Hollywood. Seven years later and she's reunited with the Spanish master for Volver in which she plays Raimunda, a high-strung mother who has to cover-up for her teen daughter when the girl accidentally kills her lecherous stepfather. At the same time, her dead mother seems to have returned to life, something kept a secret by Raimunda's sister, as Raimunda takes over the running of a restaurant to help hide the secret of her husband's body in the freezer. It's really not that strange a premise when put side-by-side with Almodóvar's previous comedy-thrillers, but it certainly may be Cruz's finest acting performance to date, which may be why she's already been getting awards and is likely to get more in the coming months.

ComingSoon.net attended a small press conference held by Cruz in New York City, while here for the 44th New York Film Festival.

ComingSoon.net: Do you know why Pedro wanted you to play the character of Raimunda with all of her strengths and vulnerabilities?
Penélope Cruz: Pedro always said that he needed somebody that could have a little bit of those opposites in her. He knows I can be very strong for some things and very vulnerable for others, and he knows I cry a lot, sometimes watching a TV commercial, and then I can be extremely strong for some things if I need to. I am the first one surprised by those reactions sometimes but he knows me very well, and he knew that I was going to understand Raimunda and what a rollercoaster she is emotionally, you know? Because you can find in that chaotic behavior, there is an order and I feel I can identify with her in those terms. As long as you understand yourself, you are free. So I feel she's not crazy, but she's emotionally up and down. I had days when we were touching three different genres in one day, when I was doing comedy in the morning, then drama, then comedy, then drama. I had to forget about all of that after three months of rehearsing. I had all the information I needed. In the end, I already felt that I already had that connection with that character and I understood what I had to understand so you have to forget at that point we all had to forget about words and technique and all of the intellectual process of finding the characters and just be there taking care of one action at a time. That's the way Raimunda lives her life. And if not, she would be dead. She has no other choice. She has so many problems, so many things to take care of, that the only way to survive is by one action at a time. And that's the only way for me. That was the only way to do this character. If not... the days that I didn't do that I felt so overwhelmed. You could have made me completely blocked and paralyzed so, one thing at a time. It doesn't matter what I want to be doing after lunch and what I want to do then, now is this. This moment and it helped me a lot realizing that that's how she lived her life.

CS: Do you think your character Raimunda is somewhat damaged?
Cruz: She is damaged, but has reasons to be. I think that's what makes her like keep going. There's so many things that she doesn't want to look at and when she looks at them, she breaks down. When her mother comes back to life, it's when she gets the opportunity to think what happened with her mother hurt her even more than what happened with her father, because she was someone she believed in and then she lost that trust. To think that she's gone forever and that they are never going to have the chance to solve those issues, she walks around with that heavy weight of unsolved issues with a family member that she really cared about. When she comes back to life, I feel like all those things that happened with her father, with her mother, with her daughter, with her husband, everything comes back to by confronting those things, she finds a peace that she has not had since that happened when she was a teenager. She's damaged because of those things, but she keeps going. That's one of the things that I love so much about this character.

CS: Was this a good movie for you as an actress making the transition from her 20s to her 30s?
Cruz: I feel like I am making a transition in playing characters that I couldn't have played 10 years ago, because of many different reasons that were very real, so it's great to have a character like this in a movie that is a homage to women's solidarity, to family. It's so needed to have more movies like that and more characters like that, and I'm very honored to be one of those women in that movie. I was happy that I finally could play a woman, because I started working when I was a teenager, so I was doing the characters that I could do according to that age. Also I can play this mother, because my character gave birth when she was 14, so it had to be a young mother with a daughter who could almost use her same clothes. All of that happens for a reason in the movie. I was ready for this character, but it's one of the most difficult and most emotionally demanding characters.

CS: This being your third movie with Pedro, what was he like during the rehearsal process?
Cruz: He's very specific and demanding, and I love that. If he doesn't like something he tells you, "Okay, that's not the way," but he feels if he sees that's the way and you found something and he's like, "Okay don't forget that, that's the path for the character." We did a lot of work at his office at the table, all of us and him, reading the scenes, talking about it, but we didn't rehearse the scene until months later. Just reading and talking. I had all my cooking lessons and then I ate everything I made and it was delicious, and I haven't cooked since the movie. I had to become very professional, cutting the vegetables. I had lessons for the flamenco with flamenco women and then all the afternoons with Pedro, then all the casting for the other characters. I would go with Pedro and cast a lot of girls like my daughter. Three girls made it to the final auditions and I was there for that entire process, which was amazing to see from the other side, because I remember all the times I had been on the other side and the nerves of that and the fear. I was nervous just from being in that room with all that energy. We did all of that and I cleaned my house a lot. My family was very worried, they thought I had a fever or something because I would go to their house and say, "Give me your broom, let me do your dishes." They know that I don't like cooking, because I am always so tired when I arrive home at the end of the day. Pedro wasn't telling me, but I knew I better clean the floors when I get to that set, because if not he's going to be so angry at me, so I had to do a lot of practice work in activities at home. Things that you do not do when you are living in hotels. I had to go back to all of that, which was great for me.

CS: In this movie, Pedro also reunited with Carmen Maura who appeared in his movie "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" almost 20 years ago. What was that like?
Cruz: Well, in some of the first rehearsals, I felt like a spy, you know? I was trying to focus on the scene, but I kept looking at them, like, "Wow, this is such a legendary couple for me. They've done seven movies together and now they haven't worked together in twenty years and I'm witnessing this moment." So that would take me out of the rehearsals a lot, because I would become a member of the audience. It was very interesting to see how it was very easy for them to work together again. They were still speaking in the same language and communicating at the same level about work, and it was very interesting to see that. When two people function well together at work, it doesn't matter that you're not hanging out or not seeing each other for years, it was intact.

CS: Why do you think Pedro's movies appeal to so many people?
Cruz: Pedro gives a great lesson about how it's possible to make a successful movie without the typical love story, without a bunch of explosions, without typical violence or things that are just only directed to a more teenage audience, you know? I know all the teenagers I talked to loved this movie. They're not stupid. So why treat them like they were? Pedro never treats his audience like they're stupid, and he never judges the characters. People really value that he gives them credit, and I think that's what makes him so special that he knows people are going to get the things. For that, you need to be a genius that he is. And he's so nice with people anywhere, any age, any sex, any culture. It's amazing all the countries that we've gone to with the movie; it's amazing what's happened with it.

CS: What do you think about all the Oscar buzz surrounding the movie?
Cruz: It's exciting and at the same time, we know it's better not to think about it too much. I don't know. I never know what to answer to that. I don't want to pretend to be cool and say, "Oh, I don't care about that" because that's not true. Of course, it would make me very happy and I want Pedro to get everything he deserves, but it's difficult not to think about it because people tell it to you twenty times a day and you do think about it when they are telling you. It's better to make the effort to really try not to think about it more and for sure you shouldn't expect anything because it's not something that's solid.

CS: How do you feel about the Hollywood Award that you're about to get?
Cruz: It's my first award in Hollywood and it's very exciting. It has a lot of meaning for me because it's for this movie, so I can dedicate it to Pedro and everything that he's done for me and my life and my career. And I feel like I have to make a big, beautiful party that night because it's big thing and it's a beautiful thing. And I am like a grandmother and probably get up and go there and go to sleep. And now I'm saying I have to organize something special that day because it's a beautiful thing that's happened for this movie.

CS: How important is it for you to have English-speaking roles compared to your work in Spain and Europe?
Cruz: Until now, I've done 30 movies [in Europe] and here I've done like 5. My career here is younger, and I think it's a normal process. I don't see anything strange in that. This one is going to be seen by more people because it's Pedro's movie and he has so much audience everywhere. It's a push for me in that direction. I think I am already noticing in the things that I'm reading that it opens people's minds and imaginations about, "Okay, you can do that. We didn't know that but you can do that kind of character." What I love about Pedro is that he gives you that character before he ever did it. He does it with all his actors. He's done it with me the three times that I've worked with him. He's done great things for my career, giving me that fate and putting that much responsibility in my hands with those characters. That's the kind of thing I want. That's what I love about acting, you know, the fear that I felt on the set of this movie, with the terror of knowing that huge amount of responsibility I had with this character and how it was going to be a challenge. Every day and every minute of the day. I love that and hopefully, I can find that material here also and can continue with that kind of material in Europe. I'm very grateful to every opportunity that people have given me because they have all gotten me to this movie today. They all told me something and it's all part of my process as an actress. The things that worked, the things that didn't, all of it meant something to me.

CS: Have you talked to Pedro about what he's going to write for you next?
Cruz: Has he told you something? Because he tells me in like hints and things like that. So I'm like okay. I find out in interviews, oh, "there's this character and this..." and that's great news!

CS: He was just saying before that he would like to do a movie with you and Nicole Kidman together.
Cruz: I don't know what he said, but he knows I love her work so much. She's a great woman and I really love and admire her work so much, so... thank you.