Penelope Cruz is the cover girl for the January issue of Interview Magazine. I’m not sure what to think of these pictures. On one hand, I do find them interesting and striking. On the other, I think Penelope is a beautiful woman who usually photographs very well, so you really have to try to make her look this bad. She doesn’t even look like herself – I even had to backtrack to make sure all of the photos were of Pene. They are. Weird, huh?

Anyway, Pene is promoting Nine and Broken Embraces, and her Nine costar Marion Cotillard does the interview. Now… here’s the thing. When one actor interviews another actor, it can get weird. And not a good weird, either. It’s a “oh God I wish they would get out of each other’s asses” weird. Which is what we’ve got here. Plus, I think Marion is just a strange person. She seems off in her own little world. Her first question to Pene is “Imagine that you meet some extraterrestrials. How would you describe humankind to them?” The full Interview piece is here, and here are some of the highlights:

COTILLARD: How do you choose your movies now? Is it stories? Characters? Directors? What’s persuading you?
CRUZ: I try to look at the whole thing and say yes to the projects that I cannot stop thinking about. 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.

COTILLARD: I have a question that might be four questions in one. What inspires you—as an actress and as a woman? Because I guess those are sometimes different inspirations.
CRUZ: Yes, yes. As an actress, I really love people like Anna Magnani and Debra Winger. I also think there is nobody better than Meryl Streep. I watch her movies over and over again—I saw Silkwood [1983] again a couple of weeks ago, and it made me just want to kiss her feet. We only know each other from seeing each other at awards ceremonies or those kinds of events, but whenever I see her, I always go up to her and start kissing her. I don’t even say anything—I just kiss her. She must think I’m some crazy person. [both laugh] And then, from the women in my life, I have to say that I have a very special relationship with my mother. She had me when she was 21, so she was very young. I’ve always been able to talk to her about everything. Since I was a little girl, nothing was taboo in my house. She’s been the person who I’ve looked to for inspiration for many of the characters that Pedro writes because she’s really a force of nature. She’s very strong.

CRUZ: I remember when we were working on Nine with Sophia [Loren]. We drove her crazy asking questions—at least I drove her crazy asking her every day about [Vittorio] De Sica and Fellini and [Marcello] Mastroianni and all of the amazing people who she’s had the opportunity to work with. She is so incredible, this woman.
COTILLARD: Yeah. She’s the perfect mix between la mama and the movie star.
CRUZ: It’s true. She looks like a goddess. But she was always worried to see if we were eating enough. I was eating like a pig during that movie because I wanted to gain a few kilos. I was eating nonstop. But it was never enough for Sophia. She would say, “You’re not eating enough, and then you’re doing all this exercise! And I just saw Marion, and she left the table. That one eats less than you do—nothing!” [both laugh]

COTILLARD: How do you prepare? I know that for Nine, you watched a lot of Italian movies.
CRUZ: Yes, I watched a lot of Italian movies and also movies with Italian actors working in English, because I had to do an Italian accent. I’ve played an Italian before, but in that film I was speaking Italian, so this was the first time doing English with an Italian accent. I also watched a lot of musicals. And then for my character, Carla, one of my little secrets is that she made me think about the Pink Panther—for some reason, that’s the image I was getting.

COTILLARD: That was your inspiration for Carla?
CRUZ: It was one of them. Because I think she’s a little bit goofy—not that she tries to be funny, but something is a little bit off about her. And at the same time, I wanted to have an image for the musical number. The musical number had to be sexy, and thinking about the Pink Panther would help me get into the mood. But I never told that to anybody! When I was climbing the ropes to the ceiling, all I could think about was the Pink Panther.

[From Interview Magazine]

Penelope also talks about how her favorite places in the world are “anyplace in the Caribbean” and Madrid. Throughout the interview, you can tell Marion and Penelope are now serious girlfriends, which is sweet. I imagine them gossiping on the phone constantly, with Pene gushing about Javier Bardem and Marion talking about aliens.

Mikael Jansson photographs of Penelope courtesy of Interview Magazine.