"When Harvey Weinstein is happy, it’s easier on the rest of the world!"

That’s best supporting actress nominee Penélope Cruz, accurately summing up the gregarious/volcanic mogul/producer Mr. Weinstein. Harvey has plenty to be happy about these days. Miss Cruz is nominated for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” “The Reader” – also from the Weinstein Company – copped five Oscar nominations, including best actress for Kate Winslet and best picture. After two years of iffy projects, the heat is on again for HW.

I spoke to Penélope Cruz over the weekend. She was calling from somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles, on a cell phone. At first, the signal died, and I thought, oh well, modern technology! But Penélope didn’t give up. She got to a landline.

Cruz has the sort of vital personality that leaps right off the screen, and right through phone wires too. She pulls you in. When I met her in the flesh a few years back, I was blown away by her lively intelligence, her energy and, needless to say, her beauty!
It’s hard to believe this vibrant star was thought to be something of a “flop” in American films, with the early disappointments of “All the Pretty Horses” and “Vanilla Sky.” Also hard to believe she was ever involved with Tom Cruise. That friendship, which blossomed in the wake of his divorce from Nicole Kidman, was tabloid fodder only eight years ago, but it seems like 20, somehow. 

She says she is thrilled to have been nominated again. (Her first bid for Oscar was 2006’s “Volver,” directed by her old friend and mentor, Pedro Almodóvar.) “Although, I have to call my family everyday, in Spain, to calm them down, so they don’t get too hopeful.” 

When I remark that “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” wasn’t a “typical” Woody Allen movie, and that he seems quite the revitalized auteur over the past couple of years, Penélope protests. “Really? I think he’s always re-inventing himself, over and over. He can do anything. Compare ‘Scoop’ to ‘Purple Rose of Cairo’ or to ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’ or ‘Bullets Over Broadway.’” Penélope gives such a compelling dissertation on the work of Woody Allen, I finally concede, lamely, “Well, I guess it’s that he’s changed locale. Most of his movies used to be set in New York. Now he’s gone European.” Penelope allows that yes, I’m right on that one.

The actress speaks English perfectly, though with a strong, charming accent. She recalls with horror her first adventures in American moviemaking (she was already a great star in Spain). "I’d studied French for years. But I had no English, nothing, zero. It was terrible not to be able to really understand your director or your co-stars. I took a crash course, and luckily I picked it up quickly.”

Cruz took ballet for nine years at Spain’s National Academy. With that training, has she ever played a dancer? “No, I haven’t. But I did get to dance and sing and a lot else in ‘Nine.’ I do the number ‘A Phone Call to the Vatican,’ which has me performing with ropes. I hadn’t danced at all in 14 years. I practiced that number every day, five hours a day from August to November. When we finally shot it, I was so sad when it was all over. It had become part of my life. Now I’m thinking of hanging some ropes around my house, just to remind me of the joy I had with that.” Penélope laughs heartily when I say ropes hanging from her ceiling might alarm first-time visitors!