Penelope Cruz won her Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona in 2008, becoming the first Spanish actress to win an acting award from the Academy. Seventeen years later, she is not chasing a second so much as choosing which of three films might carry her there, according to Variety.
The biggest of the three is not even her largest role. La Bola Negra, directed by Los Javis and inspired by the life of Federico Garcia Lorca, shared the best director prize at Cannes and sold to Netflix in a bidding war. Cruz appears as a bawdy cabaret singer in what amounts to a supporting part. Critics at Cannes and now at Telluride have called it a scene-stealing performance.
Her second potential entry is The Invite, a dinner-party comedy from A24 directed by Olivia Wilde, in which Cruz appears opposite Edward Norton. The film opened over the summer and is considered a second possible path into the supporting actress race.
The third film is the most substantial. Bunker, written and directed by Florian Zeller, pairs Cruz with her real-life husband Javier Bardem. Zeller wrote the script specifically for the two of them and built it around a marriage of roughly 17 years, which mirrors the length of their own relationship. Cruz plays a wife whose disillusionment becomes the story's emotional center. Bardem plays an architect drawn into building a survivalist shelter for a reclusive tech billionaire. The film bows in Venice competition on September 8. Sony Pictures Classics, which distributed Zeller's previous film The Father to six Oscar nominations and two wins, including best actor for Anthony Hopkins, is running Cruz for lead actress and also betting Bardem can land in best actor alongside her.
What makes the situation genuinely unusual is a rule change the Academy announced earlier this year. Beginning with the 99th Academy Awards, a performer can receive two nominations in the same category, provided both performances finish among the top five in nominations voting. Previously, the lower vote-getter was automatically removed. Cruz is the most prominent performer positioned to test the new rule.
Variety noted that the same rule creates a potential trap. If Cruz's support divides across two films, neither performance may crack the top five. If supporters concentrate on one, the other risks being ignored. All three films are mounting campaigns of their own, which gives Cruz access to existing momentum without having to manufacture it independently.
The 99th Academy Awards ceremony has not yet been scheduled, but the campaigns for all three films are expected to accelerate after Venice and Toronto.
