Getting a piece of Penélope

Pen?lope Cruz picks her way through the beach flowers and pebbles and steps into the little white-and-green timber summerhouse perched on the rocks above the Mediterranean where we are meeting to talk about another clutch of new movies - from the Colombian cocaine-trade movie Blow where she plays Johnny Depp's addled wife, to All The Pretty Horses with Matt Damon and, of course, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, her 29th film.

In Captain Corelli's Mandolin, based on Louis de Berni?res' best-selling Second World War novel and directed by John Madden (Shakespeare In Love), she plays Pelagia, daughter of Dr Iannis (played by John Hurt) and object of desire for both Mandras (Christian Bale) and Corelli (Nicolas Cage, who allegedly became her real-life love during filming on the Greek island of Cephalonia). She is tiny with giant eyes and long brown hair, truly beautiful, and, as interviews go, decidedly different (ie, slightly crazy).

'I haven't read the book and John (Madden) didn't want me to because the script is very different and I wanted to inhabit my character,' says Cruz, sipping iced coffee and talking in her fast-moving English.

Her lips somehow make simple words like 'and' and 'but' sound positively succulent. 'When Pelagia meets Corelli he is the enemy, he is a conscripted officer in the occupying Italian army in Greece in 1941. These are the people who are tearing our life apart with their war. But she is drawn to him, despite herself. For her it seems like meeting someone she feels she's known before, perhaps from another life. She doesn't want to admit her feelings but it's like a force of nature for both of them. And the same thing sort of happens to her father who, in a way, also falls in love with the enemy.'

As she settle downs into the interview, I wonder if Hollywood is going to make or break Pen?lope Cruz. Sultry continentals do not usually fare that well when dealing with the freeze-dried emotions of Hollywood. Although Cruz has been working in LA since 1993, it was not until Stephen Frears's 1998 Western The Hi-Lo Country that she finally shone. Now everybody wants her. 'Things are changing in Hollywood and I am arriving in that moment when they are more open,' she comments. 'Hollywood is a bigger space for me and I have already found many opportunities, so I hope to stay. But I'll always be a Spanish actress.'

Cruz is arguably the biggest star in her native Spain, where as a teenager she starred in films such as Jam?n Jam?n, Belle Epoque and later in Almod?var's Live Flesh and All About My Mother, playing a pregnant nun with Aids. 'I started life as a dancer but I was always the little actress at home. I did dancing for 14 years - ballet and modern - and I miss it because for my energy it is a very good way to release. But I know about dancers' lives. When you dance professionally you can't do anything else, not even have a boyfriend. My younger sister Monica dances flamenco in the Joaqu?n Cort?s company. My grandmother from Andalusia was very gypsy in her spirit and she taught me to love poetry and flamenco, and music and drama. But I feel I have won the biggest lottery - I'm doing what I love as my job. OK, I don't love the stalkers or the paparazzi or the lack of privacy. One summer there were three cars following me every day. But I am so grateful for the things that I have, the jobs that I get, and enjoy having them. I never forget that to have a house and food on your plate is not normal for so many people.

'I'm getting fantastic work now, not all "pretty girl" roles. I'm not scared to be ugly on the screen and to ask for more moustache,' says Cruz, rubbing her upper lip, 'or black bags under my eyes. I don't want to act me! I am happy to be acting in English. I might be getting up earlier - and I love to sleep, my hobby is sleeping, when I don't I am a monster - to spend hours with the dialogue coach but in a way it can be easier because it creates a distance from myself. That way I don't hear Pen?lope talking. I don't criticise myself so much. More freedom to try things.

'If the acting stops I would love to become a singer. I love music, everything from classical to Ennio Morricone to Prince, but I can't sing. I would also love to become a painter but I paint like a three-year-old so I probably would become a photographer. It is a way to express things about people without words.'

Cruz staged an exhibition in Barcelona of her photos of an eight-day stay with Tibetan exiles in Nepalese refugee camps. The surprise guest at the opening was the Dalai Lama but she's quick to say she doesn't do pictures for perks. An apparently tireless charity worker, she donated her entire fee from one film to Mother Teresa's children's sanctuary in Calcutta. I ask her what has helped her most in her life?

'Being very stubborn and having a lot of energy. I usually invest this energy in a lot of superstitions that I create for myself. I spend hours doing things that nobody sees, things that happen inside, while I'm talking to you. Rather like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. I create, invent my own superstitions. It's not like black magic but they can be very twisted and complicated and when I get rid of one, because it doesn't let me live in peace, the next day I have a new one. It's been like this forever. When I was about four years old I used to do this [she scratches the back of her head] till I got blood and my parents would say, "Go to your room, we don't want to see you doing that." I did it till I got a scab and when I got a scab I had to take it off and look at it and then wait until I got a new scab and eventually I'd end up with ten. 'Right now, my superstition is to walk in and out of my bathroom at the hotel eight times before I can leave. The cleaning lady thinks I am loco.'