Wall Street JournalPenélope Cruz and Javier Bardem are both Oscar winners, sure, but the real stars of their family? The couple's 2-year-old son, Leo, and 4-month-old daughter, Luna!
In an interview with WSJ magazine published Monday, Dec. 2, Cruz says she feels "lucky and grateful" to be a mother and calls parenting "the best thing in the world."
But the 39-year-old actress isn't the type to publicly gush about her little ones. "That's when the lion comes out," she says jokingly, when asked about her two children. "I try not to talk about them during interviews at all."
She does, however, tell the interviewer she needs to leave soon to feed daughter Luna, explaining, "I'm breastfeeding and don't want to give her formula if I can avoid it." She says on this particular night, she'll feed one child, then the other, bathe one child and then the other. "When I get them to bed," she says. "I'll think about what I want to eat. I'm only thinking about them now."
Cruz says she's "always wanted to have children," which made her empathize all the more with the character she plays in Twice Born, a woman struggling to get pregnant. "It changes everything in your life," she says of becoming a parent. "It's also going to change the way you approach your work and the way you understand a character like this because she is obsessed with becoming a mother but her body is not working that way and she has to live with the frustration."
"When you already have your own child in your arms, you understand even more what it must mean to not have the ability," she says.
Sergio Castellitto, who wrote and directed the film with his wife, Margaret Mazzantini, praised Cruz for tackling the role "as a woman, not as a star."
Twice Born hits theaters this Friday, Dec. 6.