All Hail Penelope

Penelope Cruz attends the press conference for the Pedro Aldómovar film Volver. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

It’s Day 2 of the Toronto International Film Festival and the Sutton Place Hotel on Bay Street – the locus for much of the furious press and industry activity – already looks like a base camp on Mt. Everest. There’s detritus everywhere, people and equipment strewn all over the place. Exhausted journos sprawl on the couches, looking wan and hypoxic. Barely 24 hours in and the festival is already claiming souls by the dozen.

The Sutton Place’s legions – those who can manage the enthusiasm – are abuzz with the anticipation of the festival’s first big-name press conference. Penelope Cruz and the maestro at the helm of her latest film, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, are here to chat about what is easily one of the finest pictures of the year: Volver.

Waiting in line for the screening the day before, it struck me that I couldn’t remember how or why Penelope Cruz came to be a star. In my notes, I kept confusing her with Salma Hayek or, more incongruously, Cameron Diaz. (They starred together in Vanilla Sky, I later recall.) Then I watched Volver, and I was reminded that Cruz was at her best as an Almodóvar girl, a luminescent, hyper-alive feminine creation who burned through the screen in All About My Mother. Her performance in Volver erases half a decade’s worth of awful performances in a slew of Hollywood films. She almost makes you forget that she dated Cruise the Crazy.

Televised press conferences are one of the only things in life that start precisely on time. At 3:30 p.m. on the dot, the phalanx of photographers at the front of the room start blazing away. Present are Augustin Almodóvar, Pedro’s brother and the film’s producer; Veronica, Pedro’s translator; the director himself; and, of course, Cruz.

“Over here, Penelope,” yells a photog. “To your left,” yells another. In about seven seconds, more pictures are taken of Penelope Cruz than are taken of most people in their entire lives. Shortly, the moderator calls for an end to the photo op. “Photographer, stand down!” yells a chiselled TIFF security guard to an errant paparazzo. “Whoo!” says Cruz, taken aback by the scolding.

What follows is a surprisingly engaging conversation on how to make a really good film. We get an emphatic endorsement of the auteur theory when the moderator asks who makes the decisions regarding a character’s clothing and behavior. “Me,” says Almodóvar in his thick Spanish accent. “I’m the kind of director that decides on de todo — everything. The water they drink, the character, everything. I design this kind of attitude, of against-life, against-everything. These women are very powerful. They can face everything. I wanted to aspire to early [Sophia] Loren.”

Director Pedro Aldómovar, right, makes a point during the Volver press conference. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

Cruz’s character, with her disheveled hair, thick eyeliner and copious bosom, is clearly modeled on the great Italian beauty à la It Started In Naples – a strong-willed, impassioned woman with a temper. Cruz nods sagely at this suggestion, and Almodóvar insists that this was no accident. In fact, they worked hard to achieve the effect.

“It’s more difficult to make Penelope disheveled than to make her neat,” Almodóvar explains through his translator. “This is a hard look.”

The discussion turns to Cruz’s cleavage, which is well represented in the movie. She looks demurely to the floor while her chest is discussed in remarkable detail. “Nature to her was very generous,” says Almodóvar. “Her chest is both to attract men and to feed the children. This is what it is about to be a mother. It’s very important in the film.” Her buttocks, apparently, proposed more of a challenge. Almodóvar and his translator confer briefly, and come up with an appropriate descriptor: “Too slender.”

“I looked to Dustin Hoffman’s buttocks in Tootsie,” says Almodóvar. Prosthetics were devised. “This addition makes her look tired, exhausted, but grounded. It is a very important decision.”

They also talk at length about a scene in which Cruz wipes the sugar from a wafer she is eating off the table: a natural, very human gesture that speaks to her ability as a great actress. She was “in a bubble,” as she puts it, entirely engrossed in the character. “I was a disaster after the film. It was really special what we went through.”

The only moment of tension comes from a question that’s asked after the floor is opened. “Carmen Maura [a long-time Almodóvar collaborator] says you’re not as much fun as you used to be,” claims a Spanish journalist. “Are you having as much fun, or not?”

Almodóvar looks taken aback. “He still has fun, but in a different way,” his translator assures us. “He says that it’s difficult to be as passionate forever. In the later years, he’s become more conscious of what he does – and very grounded – but he’s still having fun.”

That may be, but it looks like the fun has gone from the proceedings. The great director, in a canary yellow dress shirt, looks slightly glum, perhaps ruminating on the unkind words from a longtime collaborator. Cruz must steel herself for the second round of photo ops. The chiselled security guard nods at the moderator, and the rapid-fire snapping resumes.

Cellphones twitter to life, tapes are passed to producers and Cruz and company are swallowed by the mayhem. It’s 4:30 p.m., and the machine moves on. I leave before the security guy loses it for a second time.

Richard Poplak is a writer based in Toronto.

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