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School crush
Penélope Cruz dazzles as the temptress who seduces her older professor in Elgy.
By Denis Seguin
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Penélope Cruz casually enters the room, thumb-scrolling on her BlackBerry. Next, she pulls out a Marlboro and asks "¿Alguien tiene fuego?" which is a sexy way of saying "Anyone got a light?"
"It's my first of the day," says the chastened nicotine addict. "I only smoke three a day." The good news? It seems that the "Spanish enchantress" is a regular human being, vices and all.
Now for the bad news: Penny doesn't dish - even if the question posed is purely hypothetical. Like whether she could ever imagine having a love affair with a man more than 40 years her senior. It seems like a fair question because it lies at the heart of her new movie Elegy.
Based on the Philip Roth novel The Dying Animal and brilliantly adapted and directed by Isabel Coixet, the film stars Ben Kingsley as a Manhattan sophisticate who falls madly in love with one of his students. Cruz plays Consuela, a mature student who becomes first the object of his desire and then the eye of his hurricane.
Cruz's brow furrows when she's asked to speculate on the question. "I don't like talking about things that have to do with me personally when I'm discussing a film," she replies curtly. "I'd rather talk about how I felt about the Philip Roth book when I read it or how I became obsessed with it."
So, how did she feel when she read the book? "I think Philip Roth is a genius," she says. "He makes you understand all the characters - even the ones you don't like and the ones that make the biggest mistakes. You understand them - you understand their fears. He;s a very honest writer - I believed the story, and I connected with it."
Cruz also fell in love with the Tofino, B.C., setting where some of the film was shot. "It's such a beautiful part of the world," she recalls. "Very mysterious."
Image courtesy of Dominique Charriau/WireImage.com
Click here to read more about Penélope Cruz.
Related articles:
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