Penelope Cruz: Working With Woody Allen "Very Different" (VIDEO)

Penelope Cruz opens up to ABC News' "Nightline" on what it was like working with Woody Allen on "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

Cruz, who is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the film, described Allen's process as very different from Pedro Almodovar, who directed her in "Volver."

"I love that he was giving me the trust and the opportunity to play somebody so extreme and so different from myself," Cruz said of Allen. "I didn't see Woody again until we were on set because there was not any kind of rehearsal process, because he doesn't like working that way. That is a very different system to the one that I know."

Cruz said she loves the process she went through with Almodovar, which included hours of rehearsal each day, but she didn't miss it while working with Allen.

"With Woody, I didn't feel like I wished we were rehearsing," she said. "He expects you to get ready and come to the set with very specific proposals, and he knows very well what he needs from each actor. He gives you a huge amount of trust but if you did something he didn't like, he will fight for what he wants. He has the whole movie mapped in his head."

Watch the minisode below. The full interview airs Wednesday night on ABC News' "Nightline" at 11:30 ET.

Comments

[fisharefreinds]

This movie should have been about the relationship between Cruz and Bardem, the rest of it was so stupid. Nuerotic intellectual NY (boring unreal dialogue) meets boring Nuerotic Spain.
He is so upper upper.

[Winthorpe]

I've spent time with several neurotic intellectual women in New York who talk like those two characters. I found the dialogue realistic. They were all intellectual enough to know how to spell "neurotic," too.

[fisharefreinds]

So what, when push comes to shove, I don't care if you went to Vasser (spelliing?), no one talks like that but Allen and his actors no it that is why Johanssen can't get his jokes by.

[fisharefreinds]

I used to like him, but he needs now a good editor!

[Raggs]

of course it was different, he's a self obsessed neurotic with a degree of attention deficit disorder.
and there would be plenty to draw your attention span into deficit with Ms Cruz on the set.

[ignorantwillyharper]

Has anyone ever noticed, that who ever his leading lady is, they deliever there lines in the same manner as he does?

[ewj1]

Most overrated director in the last 10 years, second is Tim Burton. Why does he keep getting the studio OK, is unknown. His movies barely break even, have no important message, and get average reviews?

[nellrk]

Why do people defend Woody Allen so vehemently? Probably guys who sleep with their own young family members, watch pornography, and who like obscenely young Asian women because they are not threatening to their fragile egos.

These guys have such low self esteem and feel so shacky in their manhood that can't handle a mature healthy relationship with a grown up female. How pathetic!

The guy is despicable, do not go to his movies!

[CosmicSpaceTurtle]

Woody Allen was never the step father of Soon Yi Previn. She was 22 when they were married. She was a consenting adult, and they evidently love one another as they are still married.

Let's not be so judgmental. You might disagree with it, but it's really none of your business, is it? You're exaggerating to a ridiculous extent their relationship and his character.

[fisharefreinds]

The reason why Mia Farrow went after Allen is below, not because her 22 year old daughter had a relationship with him, but because she had trusted him with her young Soon Yi. This is why Farrow and her mother called him "sick." He couldn't figure out the difference between "Manhattan," and Manhattan--Art? Soup? Art? Soup?

It doesn't matter. He started to "cultivate" her when she was between the ages of 13 & 18, taking her to games and shooting artsy nude photos....
He has 2 adopted daughters with Soon-Yi, should she be concerned?

[Winthorpe]

Bartender, I'd like a glass of bitters, please!

Good response, Cosmic. Nellrk and others didn't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

[iknowdou]

I so agree!! Dogs have more legal protection than adopted kids do. I'm not kidding. If an adopted child grows up to want to marry, when she's 22, her main father figure, this is perfectly legal.

But it''s still really creepy. To see all the postings of those who keep insisting that it's okay in Woody's case because Soon Yi was of age, and he married her, and he wasn't the adopted dad, is sickening.

Adopted kids don't have the same legal rights as biological kids, yet they should have more not less legal protection. There are people who will only prey on kids who are fostered or adopted because they are extra vulnerable.

Did Woody knowingly exploit a vulnerable young woman without regard for what would be in her best interests? C'mon! Of Course!!

Now Soon Yi has lost her biological parents AND her adopted parents, which I'm sure is exactly how Woody wanted it. I doubt Soon Yi got much out of marrying Woody, but we know he sure did.

[MagisterLudi]

The higher class people discuss issues,
the lower classes discuss people.

I would bet ANYTHING that people who are so pruriently and confidently discussing Allen's peccadilloes know next to NOTHING of his work.

[JeremyO]

Woody Allen has good judgement in actresses. Diane Keaton was smokin hot in thoses '70s Allen films. Now he's using Scarlett, Penelope, and Rebecca Hall. Nice choices.

BTW Woody Allen is a national treasure. And Soon-Yi was barely his step daughter, he wasn't even married to Mia and he didn't live with her. It's a bigger gray area than what the public perception is.

[fisharefreinds]

It doesn't matter. He started to "cultivate" her when she was between the ages of 13 & 18, taking her to games and shooting artsy nude photos....
He has 2 adopted daughters with Soon-Yi, should she be concerned?

[Mathend99]

Just so you know, "Pene" means "pennis" in Spanish. Just call her Penélope, please!.

[ATS]

How many more times are people who do not know a single thing about what happened between Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, and Soon-Yi going to open their big mouths?
One more time, and please try to pay attention: Soon-Yi was 22 years old and NOT Allen's step daughter. Woody Allen was never married to Mia Farrow. They did have children, adopte and I believe one biological child, and Farrow claimed Allen molested them, but all accusations against Allen for molesting the children that he and Farrow adopted were never proven, and likely the product of Farrow coaching the kids for leverage in the custody fight. End of story.
Is it still a bit sketchy? Yes. But both Allen and Farrow showed very questionable behavior.
So if you're going to condemn Allen for what he did, how does Farrow get a free pass?

[KOisGod]

"Woody Allen says his relationship with wife Soon-Yi Previn, which has a "more paternal feeling," is "one of the truly lucky things that happened to me in my life."

Allen, a two-time Oscar winner, married Previn in 1997. She is the adopted daughter of Andre Previn and Mia Farrow, Allen's former girlfriend.

In 1992, Allen was discovered to be having an affair with Previn, then 22, while he was dating Farrow. He and Previn have two daughters, ages 5 and 6."

Sounds sort of OK to me...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9880716/

[rf dude]

Note to Woody: Check the portrait you stored in the attic back in the Anne Hall days.

It seems to have stopped working...
--

[repugnicansfearme]

The guy is a creep. No doubt about it.

[MajorKong]

I believe there is often a fine line between genius and insanity. I think Woody Allen fits that description.

[Theda]

Like my ex-husband. Half genuis, half crazy. They're hell to live with!

[BigGuy]

Woody Allen chooses his cinematographers well. Together, they make women in his pictures look good, very good.

[bethebest]

He didn't JUST marry a much younger asian woman.
she was his frigging adopted DAUGHTER for god's sake!!
When a man rapes his daughter tha is child abuse. Are the rules different when the daughter is adopted? non-white?

[MagisterLudi]

Ah the defenders petty bourgeois morality.
How pathetic it is when artistic non-entities find some way to get back at supremely talented.

Gee, I'd better tear up all my Gauguin and Picasso prints and stop playing Beethoven sonatas.

[pickwickianmom]

Henry Miller would be out--that's for sure!

[dandypuddin]

Time to move on. I think he's been married to her for about 20 years.

[DaveMacaray]

First, she wasn't Woody's "daughter.­" She was Mia Farrow's adopted daughter, and Woody and Mia never married. Second, it wouldn't be child abuse because she was already a legal adult. And third, he married her, and they're still married, which is more than Mia can say. Mia Farrow, the woman who stole Andre Previn away from his wife. The woman who was married to Frank Sinatra for ten minutes.

[RepugsOut08]

Lol! Thanks for telling it like it is. None of us, including the sainted Mia Farrow, are without sin. Love the Woodman, and his business is his own.

[wakeupandsmellthechange]

Woody Allen was the father figure in the life of Mia Farrow's children for MANY years, and was the natural and/or adoptive father to several of her children. So she was as much his DAUGHTER as the DAUGHTER AND SON that he can stake a "legal" claim to.

Secondly, she was NOT an adult when their affair began, and considering the difficulties of Soon-Yi's early life, if anything she was much more vulnerable than the typical teenager.

Sounds like you prefer your women childlike, Dave, and have a problem with a woman who actually has a life of her own to bring to the table.

[iknowdou]

Thank you for telling it like it is. I find it horrific that he fricken got with his girlfriends adopted daughter. That's like Brad getting with one of his adopted kids. We adopted people, especially adopted by white Americans (so they can make some trendy statement or raise a concubine), are growing into quite a huge contingent.

I wish people were more sympathetic about the exploitation of adopted children from foreign countries by their adopted families; what woody did is, to me, worse than child abuse, because orphans are especially vulnerable.

-singing for supper

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. He should be in JAIL. Yet look how many people defend him here? Look at jewkie....­. saying "he wasn't married to farrow. Soonyi was not his daughter".­.... so somehow, it was ok for him to molest what.... a 9 year old at that time. Polaroid pictures of a nude 9 year old Soon Yi were found.

[Jewkie]

Woody Allen never married or lived with Mia Farrow. Soon Yi was not his adopted daughter.

I very much admire Farrow, but she was 20 when she married 50 year old Frank Sinatra.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Oh so that makes it ok in your book?