Filmed with Love: Penélope Cruz & Carla Simón

0:03Only connect, urged the novelist Ian Foster. He wrote this more than a century ago. Today, those words resonate more powerfully than ever. Artists and creatives collaborating across disciplines, geographies, and perceptions are truly leading the way. So join us. Let's connect.

0:27Welcome to the third season of Chanel Connects. I'm Yana Peele, Global Head of Arts and Culture at Chanel. In this series, we bring together global changemakers from the worlds of food, film, art, architecture and beyond. Some are old friends and collaborators. Others are meeting for the first time. All are focused on what matters most and what happens next. And now we get to listen in.

1:06In this episode, we bring together a cinematic legend and a rising star, Penelope Cruz, the Academy Award-winning actor whose performances in independent film and Hollywood blockbusters have been captivating audiences for more than three decades. She connects with Carla Simon, a director who has introduced Catalan cinema to new global audiences by drawing on her unique rural upbringing. The duo connected Madrid for the first time and discussed politics, parenthood, and the bravery of taking the space to breathe.

2:00So it's going to be a little bit strange for us to be speaking in English to each other, but... Let's try. Let's try. It's very strange. We haven't met yet. Very strange. I was always thinking, I want to call her, to tell her how much I love her films, but I'm very happy that it's Chanel putting us together. We've been together in the same places at times, but nobody even introduced us. also because when there's like these big ceremonies no it's so hard to kind of have like a quality conversation yeah it's impossible you have a small talks with everyone but then and i think that yeah i was remembering that once we did like a red carpet where i saw you there but we didn't talk obviously one of those moments where yes i heard to each other and yeah and for me was like the first time that i saw you in person no like after so many films so yeah so it's a good chance to be able to talk to you.

2:57How old are you? I'm 36. Wow, so young. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I started to work so young that I was used to be always the youngest. Yeah. And a part of my brain still thinks like, you're the youngest of the group, but I'm realizing that it's not like that anymore but it was like that for so many years because I was 15 when I did some of my first little jobs for how old were you when you did the Hamon Hamon 17 but before that I did some little things for publicity some commercials I did a music tv show so yeah so you always knew wanted to be an action? Well, I knew that I loved acting because when I was about four, when I was playing with my grandmother's neighbor's son, I realized that this thing that we were doing, playing, pretending to be somebody else, was acting.

4:01And I got like this huge dopamine high and I was four and I remember feeling okay and thinking this is what I want to do. This is acting. And I was not going to a theater school, but I was doing classical ballet for all those years, for 17 years. So until I was a teenager, I was putting all that necessity to create, to play characters, to research characters. I had that covered through my relationship with ballet. But when I was 12, 13, I had already seen a lot of movies that I had become obsessed with and a lot of performances that I would watch 20 times in a row. I would not go to play with my friends after school if I was not dancing.

4:48I was renting films to watch and study those films and dream about maybe one day that could give me a lot of happiness in the future. But to my family, it sounded like completely like science fiction because we didn't have anybody in our family or circle of friends we didn't know anybody who could make a living out of something related to arts yeah so it was new there it was like saying mom that i want to be an astronaut you know in that time for a girl to say that and but they support they didn't laugh they didn't invalidate me so i thought okay they're telling me that it's going to be hard close to impossible, but there is maybe a little like a 2 % of possibilities or maybe more.

5:37I didn't know, but they're not laughing at me. So I will try and I will always be grateful for that. And then I started thinking, why don't I look for an agent? Why don't I go to a theater school? And maybe I can do both. Then when I started working as an actress and to my surprise, I got some positive responses in the castings, then I realized later that I had to choose between dancing and acting, that it was not possible to do both. And was it a difficult choice? It was a sad decision because I was dancing like four hours a day. I was studying during the day, then in the evening I was dancing until 8 or 9 p.m.

6:22every day. and then there was a point where I almost had like a crisis from working so much. You know, I was still young, a teenager, so I didn't know when to stop. And for you? For me, it's very different. Because I discovered I wanted to make films later, like when I was around 17 or 16 maybe. Because I grew up in a countryside house and we spent a lot of time playing but not watching many films. So at the age of like 15, you know, I had seen all Disney films and then Buster Keaton because my father used to show us Buster Keaton a lot but not so many more films and we didn't even watch the TV.

7:08So it was when I was at high school, when was my last year, that there was this teacher who started showing us some films and then after these films we would have a conversation and a debate and through the debate I realized that you know you can say many things through a film you know so you watch a story and suddenly you go home or you talk to your friends and you can really reflect about human condition about life no and it was actually more than the film the conversations that made me realize the power yeah so I decided I wanted to be a journalist at that time from the National geographic that was my my dream because i wanted to travel basically and then i decided that maybe it was better to to do something related to film and that's how i started no but there are many like classical films films that everyone has seen that i never saw because you didn't have a movie theater close to where you lived and me neither if we wanted to go to a movie theater the closest one was like you had to walk for a while or you had to go to the city yeah but then my my parents bought a Betamax machine remember that they were so huge and I asked them please give me a copy of the the cart of the video store and that's how I started to really appreciate a film and discover so many of who still today are my favorite directors and actresses and actors.

8:40And I've been lucky to be able to work with some of them. Yes. So who are your creative inspirations? You know, for me, I think that I would say right now, there are many women filmmakers that I feel they are my kind of big reference. Like, I don't know, I love the cinema of Claire Denis, for example, or Lucrecia Martel, Argentinian. I mean, of course, Chantal Ackerman, Agnès Bardà, no? But when I was studying, I didn't have these influences because nobody showed me these films, no? So it was later. But now I feel I'm still discovering many women who made great films. Like a new discover for me was Marta Mésaros, who is a Hungarian filmmaker, that I discovered she had like this amazing filmography and I didn't know about her.

9:31you know so there are many women that I think that history has to put still in its place that can be our reference in the future but maybe we still don't know because nobody kind of like put their films together and show us. There have not been so many but ones that have done maybe some of them have done great things and yeah if they are from a few years back we haven't even is in their work, most of us. Yes, because also I always thought, well, you know, prices are important and all this, but the only thing that really puts the films on its place is time. It's like when you feel that this film is still so important, even if it was made a long time ago.

10:15But then I discovered that history is sometimes not fair enough. So you have to kind of also look for films that maybe they didn't become famous, but still are very interesting. Because for you to get your first movie made was an easy process? Or how many years did it take you? Honestly, I feel I was really lucky or fortunate. I don't know. So I study audiovisual communication, which is like a public degree if you want to make films, but it's still very wide. So I ended up asking for a scholarship and studying in London. at the London Film School. And I finished there in 2014 when I started writing Summer 1993.

11:01And we shot two years after that. Yes, that is not normal. It's not normal. I'm very happy that somebody saw your incredible talent and gave you that opportunity because you and I know how many directors, especially women, it's still harder. It is the way it is. Well, to start and also to kind of consolidate, because there are many women also who made one or two films and then it's hard to continue. Now I think that this is changing a lot. But also a lot of times I think that I don't like this, but I think it has to do with motherhood sometimes, that kind of stops some careers. And now I think that we're in this moment where we have to try that this doesn't happen.

11:43Yeah, to try to find that balance. Of course, it's not easy. Well, I wonder a lot about how you do it. Well, having very clear what my priorities are, and my number one priority is raising my children and not being away from them. So I feel I've been very lucky because, for example, the last few years I've been working in the summer where we can all go together. And if it's something in the winter, I've been able to do that in the place where we were living. so they're going to school, I'm going to work but I also make like one movie per year or sometimes two if they're not very long. And I used to make, before I had children I used to make three, four movies per year.

12:32So I knew that rhythm was okay for those years but that's not what I wanted for the moment I became a mother. And I feel like I've been very lucky because even if this is the way I want to do it I depend on others. So the fact that Michael Mann called me for last summer great we all go to Italy the year before with Crialese and going being in Italy for L 'Immensità which is a very special film for me then being able to do Parallel Mothers here in Madrid also where they were in school and then my movie with Juan Diego Botto on the fringe En los Márgenes I feel like this has been my intention I am gonna do it this way and I have to be able to balance both.

13:19But at the same time, I'm very grateful that I get the opportunities to do it that way. And I have to say no to a lot of things that are very tempting sometimes, but I don't have that ambition. My number one ambition is to raise them, to be with them and be able to combine that with my job so that they can also see that mom can work and can enjoy her work and do it in a way where it doesn't keep me away from them. but sometimes they can come to the set and see what it is, you know, in our profession is a teamwork. And my work is not important than somebody else's work. And we all need each other to make that happen.

14:02So that is the part that I want them to see. Because it's the part that gives me happiness from this profession. Their research, their learning, their being a constant, eternal student, because that's where we are. And I know I could be saying the same things at 80, 90. That's the part that never gets old. Yeah. Can you tell me what it is for you to work in Spanish cinema in 2023? You know, I feel very fortunate to be making films at this specific moment here in Spain because I feel that there is like a kind of like explosions of like new filmmakers, you know, a lot of women. I don't know how you feel about it, but I feel that it's, I don't know, very interesting.

14:47Also, our cinema is traveling outside, which is something that was happening not so often. I mean, just obviously for Almodóvar and a few filmmakers more, but now I feel that it's like the Spanish borders open. And I think it's very good also to feel like the power of cinema to kind of know us. So what I realized with my two films that are in Catalan is that some people in the world discover that there is a language that is called Catalan, that it's in Spain. And then you realize that sometimes we underestimate the power of films in that sense. How many things do we know about like France or Japan or obviously the States because of their films?

15:32So many people that I have found since I began working, they asked me about things, about our culture and about specific areas of Spain or specific food because of things that they have seen in a film. and I've made a few where that was very important because it was related to places that maybe had not been put on film before a lot like what happened with Los Monegros with Bigas Luna and everyone was fascinated by the landscape that there's something so special in that area that also I had never seen myself but I fell in love with it completely or even when a director that is not Spanish comes and gets like immersed in this culture and is able to do something like what Asghar Faradhi did with Everybody Knows or what Woody did with Vicky Cristina Barcelona because of they love and admire this country and this culture and they are able to get it to know in so much detail that are able to contribute to express you know the the beauty of of our country and and so much culture and so much history no and also like i was just thinking that for me i'm sure that you became kind of like an icon of what spain is right now also through the films no so this is i think it's so powerful no like this this this idea of people understanding a country through films even if you haven't been there, no?

17:09And also there is something I feel now, because we are talking a lot about how there is a lot of films set in rural Spain. Like both of your films? Yeah, and many people are saying, like, what's happening with that? As if it was a new thing. But I feel that it's not like that, you know? Like, Spanish have had a long tradition of a film set in a rural world because it's a very rural country at the end, no? But I think that there is some kind of interesting difference in the moment that we live in now is that I feel that the cinema became a little bit more democratic so more people can make films so people like middle class people who grew up in a village and maybe went to study outside or even like outside Spain go back to our small villages and tell the stories the places where we grew up where we grew up and I think it's very interesting because it's a way to talk about this rural part of Spain but from the inside but it's true that that has been a huge part of our cinema I mean Berlanga, Buñuel also Pedro with his relationship with La Mancha seen from so many different points of view and I think all the great directors in our country it's a natural thing at the end because I think that our country is very rural even if we are in another moment of rurality with the small villages that are disappearing, some of them.

18:40Yes, that's why Alcarras is so touching for me. Because you never force anything, but it breaks your heart. Because the way you were talking about the danger of those rural areas disappearing or being hurt, it could not be told with more truth and more poetry. and I feel like there are very few directors like you because you let things breathe. There is a rhythm. There is like a different pulse. And to really take the audience there, you have to be able to be as brave as you are to let things breathe. Let people talk on top of each other. People don't talk in life like now you talk and then you answer and then you, especially in our country.

19:31That's another way. To feel that this is a piece of life that you put there, you have to be so brave, to not be afraid of this rhythm that... Es como el pez que se muerde de la cola. ¿Cómo se dice esto en inglés? Like the fish that eats the... Its own tail. Yes, because we complain about this crazy rhythm that society is imposing, but at the same time we are creating it. And I feel like when there is an artist like you that says, hold on, I'm going to take this story, but for you to understand what it is to be there and to go through these experiences, you have to come to my rhythm and have this experience.

20:16No, but it's true that for me, it's not only on my films, it's more my philosophy, you know. Like, I think that when it comes to how many films you have to make, you know, and what we were talking about now that you just do one or two per year because you want to also live. And I think that it's very important to keep living if we are telling stories, because if you get totally disconnected from life, how are you going to tell a story? It's so hard. So for me, this part of not rushing any creative process is very important. And sometimes I feel like I'm fighting against the world because everything was so fast.

20:52And people expect from you that you produce often. And it's like, but when are you going to shoot? Everyone asks, but when are you going to shoot? And it's like, I don't know, I have to make sure that whatever I'm writing and whatever I'm preparing is ready. And in the case for Alcaraz, even if it portrays my mom's village, and my uncles cultivate peaches in this village and all this, but still it needed a lot of research. And it allowed me to spend a lot of time with my family there, investigate as much as I wanted. and all this process is obviously reflected in the film but it's also my personal process that I'm curious about that.

21:32I want to live this. For me, making films is an opportunity to live things that I wouldn't otherwise, no? So the process is as important as the result. For me too. And when I was doing four movies per year, imagine I had no life. My life was from one character to the next and there was a point where I felt like I haven't experienced anything on my own in those years that was not from set to set to set but that that changed like 13 years ago 14 years ago because I was also missing being able to choose the projects that I want to be part of yeah without that it's only like you are going to live half of the experience?

22:18Well, the thing is that for me, if you don't dedicate a lot of time to a project and you put your soul in it somehow, I don't know. I wouldn't know how to do it, honestly, you know, because then it becomes like some kind of, I don't know, job, normal job. Yes, yes, yes. And for me filmmaking is not a job. I mean, yes, of course, I live out of it, but it's a lot more, no? So it means a lot. But for me, making a film, it's almost like a ritual somehow. So it has to do with telling something that I need to express and discovering things that I need to discover and investigate. And I think that this idea of experiment and investigate also needs time.

23:00Because it means that sometimes you are trying to do something that you don't know where it's going to go. Yeah, and you don't know how much time you will need until you are maybe in the middle of it. Yeah, and until you say, okay, now I think I have it, no? So I think that this idea of like seeing filmmaking like a process that needs time and that it's like research somehow, no? That I think it's very easy to say, but then it's more difficult to kind of protect, no? When you are making it. And also I see that on set, no? That sometimes you have many people there, no? And all looking at you as a director, no?

23:35So what do we do? And sometimes I'm like, I don't know, you know? Let's see what happens. It's important to be able to say, I don't know. And to be able to ask questions also as a director. Yeah, I think so. And also because I see filmmaking as a collaborative art. So sometimes I like to ask the people I work with, like, what do you think? So let's discuss this. But now, like, we try to make films and TV shows and all this in a very fast way. So sometimes there's a space to think on set. It's not so common. And I talk a lot about that with my producer, because it's something that I think I wouldn't have been able to do Alcaraz if it wasn't because of the time we had.

24:14I like when you feel that there is life happening in the film. Yeah, you make that happen in every single shot. There is not a single moment where you feel that is forced, that is not on the level of everything else. No, it's just pure truth. No, and I like looking for that, but I think that sometimes this goes with kind of losing control, and I'm a very controlling person. Of course, I'm a director. But I put myself in situations where I feel that, okay, I'm not going to be able to control, so life will come up. But you can see that you are giving them that freedom, even if you like control, which is normal being a director.

24:53I don't know anybody who doesn't have that, but you can see that you are also trusting them and giving them space. Yeah, this is very important, to trust the people you've chosen. but okay so what's next but yes I have to ask you sorry I know everybody is asking you this about your next thing yeah well I'm preparing a film that I feel it kind of closes the trilogy about families about my families and it talks about family memory because you know as you know my parents died when I was a kid so I don't have access of all my family memory and this is something that I'm always so worried about like what happens when you cannot ask the people you should ask your parents you know about your family history and now that I have a kid it's even more important for me to kind of I think sometimes that I make films just to kind of leave these stories for my children somehow but I'm very excited also because I think it will definitely have the tone of my other films but there is a part that it's a little bit more, let's say, dreamy somehow, no?

26:02So there is some challenge there to kind of experiment as a new thing for me. I think that's not going to be a challenge for you because there is so much magic in your films. Sounds great. Yeah, thanks. And what about you? For me, I have a Ferrari coming out. I did it with Michael Mann, who is an incredible director, as we all know but to see him in action is like mind-blowing I've never seen anybody with more energy and then I'm developing a few different things because I have my production company and we're developing a tv show and a film and a documentary that I am producing and directing and I would love to talk about it more but it's for sure like one of the most important things that I personally have to do in this lifetime is this documentary.

26:58Yeah, okay. Important for me to do. That's cool. We have to decide what movie we're gonna do together. Yeah, sure. And then that will be a great thing. If we had two more hours, we would come up with something. No, actually before you leave, I have something to tell you. Okay, okay, that's good. Life is very interesting. Always.

27:26This was Chanel Connect Season 3. It's been great having you with us. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Revisit conversations from the first two seasons with guests including Tilda Swinton, Kehinde Wiley, G-Dragon, Keira Knightley, and Grimes.

27:54Thank you.