The PATH to FAME

“I want to work with Johnny Depp”

PENELOPE CRUZ has become the first Spaniard to be honoured with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Accompanied by her husband (and father of their recently-born first child) Javier Bardem and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides co-star Johnny Depp, the 36-year-old actress recalled her earliest days in Hollywood. “Let me tell you about the man with the hat. I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two things, two sentences. One was, ‘How are you?’; the other one was, ‘I want to work with Johnny Depp.’ In the last 10 years I have worked with him twice and that has improved my English, so now I know how to say, ‘I want to work with Johnny Depp again!’ Thank you Johnny for your friendship and your talent; you are such an inspiration to so many of us, always.”

Cruz, who was the first Spaniard to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award (Volver in 2006) and the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar (supporting actress in 2009 for Vicky Cristina Barcelona) was the 2,435th star to be honoured on the famous “Walk” outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.

(Bardem was the first Spaniard to win a best supporting actor Oscar, in 2007 for No Country For Old Men.)