Top 155 Quotes & Sayings by Penelope Cruz - Page 2

I really dislike it when the media asks young actresses, normally when they're about 23, how they feel about ageing. There are other things to worry about.

The thing that really makes me happy is the real work and rehearsing and creating the character and the process of making the movie. Hollywood's not real.

There are roles I have said no to, but for different reasons. And, I never talk about those because I feel it's disrespectful to say, 'Oh, I said no to this project or that other project.' I'd rather talk about the ones that I said yes to and the reasons why.

I remember playing with some friends and being aware that I was acting as I was playing with them - I would think of a character and pretend to be someone else. My parents also took me to ballet school, and there I think I was able to start communicating those feelings or emotions - I danced for so many years.

I always knew I wanted a family because of the way I grew up. Family has always been the most important thing.

My first fear was about the devil, when I was around fire, something I saw in a movie. I think it's about pain, in whichever form it comes. I had a lot of energy as a child - sometimes too much - and I didn't know how to channel it. It was making me suffer. It was bigger than myself, and I was very young.

I don't do Twitter, Facebook; none of that. My email I do from my Blackberry or my iPhone.

My parents owned a hair salon, so I learned a few tricks there. I can cut people's hair - if they let me.

You can always keep learning with acting, because the school is life and yourself and your friends and your relationships. I'm fascinated by it! It's infinito!

In my house every Sunday, everybody was cleaning the house. There was always music, and everybody was dancing, sometimes naked, around the house. Not hippie, but very free.

It doesn't happen every day, but many nights my dreams are like a movie. I don't see normal movement - I see things in very complicated shots. That's why I do remember many of them.

I try to do as much as possible for every character. Some of them, it is easier to do the research because you have either real examples that you work with, maybe some specific person that inspires you in that case, or the performances from other people, or the characters, or a character from a book.

I just try not to label myself in any way. I just have an allergy to labels in general. I can tell you that I am surrounded by very strong women and that I really appreciate that, but I'd rather not label myself.

I hope that I will be able to work all of my life - even when I am older. It's easier to do that in Europe than in America, because in America it is difficult for older actresses to find work.

I have fear, always, on the set. Insecurity to the point where the first week I always think I could be fired. I think that's a fear most actors have.

My first fear was about the devil, when I was around fire, something I saw in a movie. I think it's about pain, in whichever form it comes.

Calcutta is like another world. People there are very special and grateful.

In 'Twice Born' I play my character in her 20s, 30s and 50s. For the fifty year old scenes, I had some prosthetics; it was interesting to see how I'm going to look when I'm fifty-five or so. I actually saw similarities between my grandmothers and my mother.

I breastfed my son for 13 months, and I plan to do at least the same with my daughter. That's an amazing thing for babies, but it's also really good for the mother because it regulates your body again after pregnancy.

There was a point where I was making four movies a year. I was always on a set. I had no stories to tell. I was feeling empty. My life was just luggage and hotels and from set to set, from character to character. And one day, I said, 'And where is mine?' You know? And the moment I started to feel that fear, I stopped and I slowed down.

As an actress, I really love people like Anna Magnani and Debra Winger. I also think there is nobody better than Meryl Streep.

Sometimes you will do a close-up for a scene in the morning where you are totally distraught, then shoot the rest of that scene seven hours later. How do you hang on to that feeling all day without burning up, without going so far that you have nothing left to give when the cameras roll again?

I never felt, 'Oh, I think I look good.' I always tend to be more in the insecure side. And I thought that has always been a way to protect myself. Because I don't trust the good feelings that can come from that.

I have been hearing gossip and lies since I began working. When I was 17, I used to get very angry because I opened a magazine and I saw myself in a picture on a motorcycle, and the headline was, 'I'm getting married next month.'

There's a lot of work that goes into it - if you think about how many collections a year that Karl Lagerfeld has to do, with Chanel and all the other things he does - you can't do that unless you are working 18 hours a day. It's really a lot of hard, hard work.

I don't know why, but women in a hair salon share their deepest secrets.

Madrid is what I call home, but also the States.

I love ballet, and it's a little boring for me to go to the gym because I'm used to the dancing discipline - it's really hard but much more fun.

I am not somebody who likes to give advice, or anything like that, unless it's my closest friends or family.

I never want to lie about my age. If I look around at the actresses I admire, they are all women who have not fought growing older, but embraced it and been proud of it - women like Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn.

I love Salma Hayek; we've been friends for a really long time. I admire how she has come such a long way and always remained grounded and who she is. She never compromises to follow her vision, and she is loyal. Such qualities only mark the great stars.

I've worked myself to exhaustion before. I was so young, and I thought I could do everything; it was just too much for my body and my mind.

I was very superstitious when I was a teenager, and I had to fight against that because it made me feel anxious.

I was 11 when I first said I wanted to become an actress, and everyone looked at me as if I had said I wanted to go to the moon.

It's a good thing to be old. Because when you get older, that means you haven't died yet, right? And when I do get older, I want to have the grace to be proud of it, not to lie about it or try to fight it.

I have had a very singular kind of life since I started working so young, so I am very used to traveling, working, taking time for myself.

I always feel scared and insecure on a film set. I don't know any other way.

I try to eat healthily, but I love fried food and bad things. Give me a plate of bread, some oil and salt and I'm happy. But you can't eat like this all the time.

Age holds absolutely no fear for me. There is so much enjoyment ahead.

The one philosophy or religion I find I am most close to is the Buddhist one. I think it is the one that respects others and the one that doesn't say that this is the only way. I think happiness is the moment when - if you've forgotten those little things - they suddenly come back into focus for you.

We had a great connection with Pedro Almodovar from the beginning. Even before I met him, it was so strange. I felt like I already knew him. I loved him even before I met him. It was so powerful. And when I looked at him in the eyes, this was the feeling that I knew I was going to have with him. It gets bigger and bigger every day. I adore him. It's much more than working together. He's a really special person in my life.

We need to stop the dying and start the living; stop the hunger and start the hoping.

I spend so much time living by myself - mostly in hotels - and I pick up cats when I'm feeling particularly lonely.

He can have my body, but he will never have my soul. never!

I love the Italian culture, it's a beautiful culture. I love the language, the Italian people, their music, their attitudes... I just love it! Sometimes, I think I'm an Italian trapped in a Spanish woman's body.

My definition of beauty is without rules. It can be the face of a beautiful 90-year-old woman that is full of stories and emotion. Beauty is what somebody's eyes communicate.

I don't think I am beautiful. I can look good and I can look ugly.

I think magic is very related to happiness. So it is not there all the time, but there are beautiful moments of magic in everyone's life.

Sometimes I feel we express more with dancing or acting or painting than with words.

Sometimes, when things go well on a set, or when you are working with somebody like Pedro Almodovar, Woody Allen, Rob Marshall or somebody so talented and so inspiring, it's really beautiful, what happens there.

When you really have the preparation time and things start taking the shape that they need, you have a beautiful feeling that comes from the hard work.

I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two sentences: "How are you?" and "I want to work with Johnny Depp."

I've seen my grandmothers grow old and they are so beautiful, every wrinkle in their face tells a story. I want to feel that in 30 years. I would always choose that kind of beauty over that comes from having too much done to yourself.

I realized that when two people function well together at work, it doesn't matter if they hadn't seen each other for years. What they had before was still intact.

I think superstition has a lot to do with fear: the less, the better.

I think most actors . . . We are insecure, in general. I think to be an actor, you need to have an ego, but then, our ego is our worst enemy.

Nothing is going to happen to you if you throw salt on the floor, stand under a ladder, or see eight black cats on the street.

If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work. Before, I was very addicted to being on set, and I was doing three or four movies a year for many years. Now, fortunately, I can go to work only when I am passionate about a project, and the rest of the time, I can live my life. I'm not interested in doing movies just as a marathon. When I go to work now, I have much more to give. But the other way, you get empty.

Every relationship ends, until maybe you find one that lasts forever.

I would close down all those teenage magazines that encourage young girls to diet. Who says that to be pretty you have to be thin? Some people look better thin and some don't. There is almost a standard being created where only thin is acceptable. The influence of those magazines on girls as young as 13 is horrific.