“Hi Pal, are you free to do a shoot with Penelope Cruz tomorrow?”
“What!?”
“Are you free to shoot Penelope Cruz tomorrow?”
“You’re joking right?!”
“No, we have a shoot lined up at L’Agent Provocateur tomorrow.”
“You’re taking the piss?!”
“No!”
“She’s my favourite actress, and you want me to shoot her at L’Agent Provocateur?”
…
That was pretty much how the conversation went as I got the commission to shoot Penelope Cruz. It is of course never as good as it sounds as the shoot was only 20 minutes and shooting her at L’Agent Provocateur really only meant that we have very little space to work in. Never the less, I was about to meet my all time favourite actress, (apart from maybe Audrey Hepburn, but I hear she’s a little cold now a days.) It was a shoot that could have been so much more, with a more spacious venue and a little more time perhaps. But still I feel I managed to capture a Penelope Cruz that has not been overly stylised, a Penelope that holds the beauty as a person as well as a model and actress. I am of course very objective! They say ‘never meet your idols’ - and although the word idol is one I should use with more care, I did find that meeting Penelope was something I walked away from smiling. But don’t get me wrong, these ‘idols’ belong to a fantasy, and I have to admit, coming home to my wife later that day made me smile that little bit more.
