TIL Desk Hollywood/ Penelope Cruz says she lost her first lead role in a Hollywood movie because the team wanted to include a nude scene at the last minute. The actor, who was just 21 years old and on the cusp of stardom, said she decided to follow her heart even when it meant losing a big opportunity.
The Oscar-winning star, who recently played the role of Donatella Versace in FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”, said she was sent an “amazing script” for a lead role in a major American movie and she took four months of English lessons before flying to Los Angeles for her final audition.
“When I get there, completely jet-lagged… they say, ‘Oh, we have to see you in the office.’ They wanted to add something to (my contract). They said, ‘If you want to do the screen test, you have to accept that there are going to be some naked scenes that were not in the script’.”
“I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me 24 hours ago, before I got on the plane?’ Even if I did movies before that had scenes at that time, I didn’t want to go through that. I felt like, for a few years, I’m just going to say no to whatever, when my heart is telling me no,” Cruz said in an interview for the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
