Toronto: Penélope Cruz to Guest on Live Episode of THR’s ‘Awards Chatter’ Pod as Fest Premieres ‘La Bola Negra’ and ‘Bunker’

Penélope Cruz, the Oscar-winning actress who is having a banner year — she has given acclaimed performances in three films, La Bola Negra, Bunker and The Invite — will be sitting down with yours truly to record an episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast in front of an audience at the Toronto International Film Festival, where La Bola Negra and Bunker will have their North American premieres.

The invitation-only event will take place at the 1 Hotel, a luxury hotel in downtown Toronto’s King West Village, on the afternoon Tuesday, Sept. 15. A reception will follow.

Cruz, 52, is the most celebrated Spanish film actress of all time, and one of only a handful of Europeans who have become bona fide A-list stars in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Times has described her as “one of international cinema’s most artistically risk-ready performers.” The New York Times has written that she is “near the top of any credible list of present-day flesh-and-blood screen goddesses.” And fellow Oscar winner Ben Kingsley once said of her, “No two of her performances are alike; watch any two of her films back to back and the sheer reach of her range is immediately obvious.”

Over the 35 years since her big screen debut in the Spanish film Jamon, Jamon (opposite Javier Bardem, who is now her husband), Cruz has won acting awards from each of the five highest-profile European film academies — three Goyas from Spain, two Felixes from the European Film Academy, one BAFTA from England, one David di Donatello from Italy and one Cesar from France.

Perhaps best known for her seven collaborations with the Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar — 1997’s Live Flesh, 1999’s All About My Mother, 2006’s Volver, 2009’s Broken Embraces, 2013’s I’m So Excited!, 2019’s Pain and Glory and 2021’s Parallel Mothers — she has starred in two films which won the best international feature Oscar, 1992’s Belle Epoque and All About My Mother.

For Volver, she became the first Spanish actress ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar, and subsequently received three additional acting noms, for 2008’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2009’s Nine and Parallel Mothers. And for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, she became, in 2009, the first — and, to this day, only — Spanish actress to win an acting Oscar.

In Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s La Bola Negra (Netflix), Cruz plays a bawdy cabaret singer entertaining troops during the Spanish Civil War. In Florian Zeller’s Bunker (Sony Classics), she plays a book editor enduring marital strife. And in Olivia Wilde’s The Invite (A24), she plays a bohemian sexologist.

Awards Chatter recently turned 11 years old and is nearing its 700th episode. Past guests have included Martin Scorsese, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Elton John, Barbra Streisand, Jerry Seinfeld, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Lawrence, Sean Penn, Snoop Dogg, Julia Roberts, Michael B. Jordan, Norman Lear, Sophia Loren, George Clooney, Will Smith, Carol Burnett, Robert De Niro, Dwayne Johnson, Angelina Jolie, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Hart, Margot Robbie, Lorne Michaels, Seth Rogen, Kate Winslet, David Letterman, Lady Gaga, Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, Natalie Portman, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bono, Dolly Parton, Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Spike Lee, Audra McDonald, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Denzel Washington, Ariana Grande, Kevin Costner, Jane Fonda, Tom Hanks, Olivia Rodrigo, Quincy Jones, Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, Timothée Chalamet, Tina Fey, Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Adam Sandler, Ken Burns, Malala Yousafzai, Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Kobe Bryant, Gloria Steinem and Buzz Aldrin.