Do we like Penélope Cruz?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decent record on both tests, with LGBTQ+ stories embraced and one contested position on Gaza, but the digging turned up less than we'd like.
Penélope Cruz grew up in the Madrid area, and her mum was a hairdresser. As a kid she spent about two hours a day in the salon, which she calls “the best acting school”. She says the women there shared their deepest secrets, and you can see where the attentive, lived-in performances come from.
Her big screen life runs from Almodóvar films in Spain to Hollywood. In 2021 she won best actress at Venice, in Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers. That's a long way from the salon, and she's stayed loyal to the Spanish filmmakers who made her.
The messy bit is Gaza. In 2014 she and her husband, Javier Bardem, joined a campaign by Spanish film figures calling for a ceasefire, and online critics accused them of antisemitism. She told USA Today she didn't want to be misunderstood, and said she hoped for peace in both Israel and Gaza. Where you land depends on whether you read the letter as a plea to stop a war or as one-sided, but she was clear it wasn't aimed at Jewish people.
When Harvey Weinstein stories broke in 2017, she backed the women who came forward. She said she was shocked and hadn't known that side of him, and called the behaviour unacceptable. A statement is only a statement, but it was on the right side and she said it with her own name.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up: no campaigning against trans or gay people, no conspiracy theories, no anti-vax or climate-denial material, and nothing about migrants. At Cannes this year she was asked why LGBTQ+ stories keep turning up in her work. She said she has a strong reaction to anything unfair, and that she puts it into her characters. Her recent work is with Spanish filmmakers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, and nothing about that company raises a flag.
She also lost a case, but one she started herself. In Denmark she sued a tabloid over topless photos taken on a public beach, and the appeal court found against her in 2015. She was ordered to pay 25,000 kroner in costs. That's a privacy fight, not a scandal.