Between the artistic fullness of Norma Shearer and Penélope Cruz, there are almost four generations, over eight decades, countless films, and, including the upcoming one in March, 97 editions of the Oscars. Also, a change in the regulations for selecting Academy Award nominees separates them, but that's bureaucracy. The first was born in Montreal in 1902, and the second, as is well known, in Alcobendas much later. The first is remembered (with difficulty, but there it is) for films like La divorciada by Robert Z. Leonard, or Mujeres by George Cukor (not to mention losing the lead role to Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind by a narrow margin). There's no need to recall anything about the second because she's still here. And how. So far this year, she has been seen in La bola negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi; soon she will be seen again alongside Javier Bardem in Búnker by Florian Zeller; and imminently, this Friday, the screen belongs to her thanks to one of the season's surprises: La invitación, by Olivia Wilde. And all this after her appearance in The Lost Daughter by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and awaiting the next work by Nancy Meyers alongside Owen Wilson, Jude Law, and Kieran Culkin, and what Isabel Coixet is working on, with whom she collaborates again after so long.
And what unites one and the other? For now, little. But something. If all the Academy Awards predictions come true (that is, the forecasts of Variety magazine and, through it, all the weighty specialized publications), both are supported by History, which is significant. Norma Shearer is listed in the annals as the only actress on the planet who, in the same year, 1930, at the third Oscars, was nominated in the same category for two different films: the aforementioned La divorciada and A Free Soul by Clarence Brown. The same will likely happen to Penélope Cruz thanks to the roles of the cabaret singer Nené Romero in the Javis' film and the uninhibited sexologist Pina in Wilde's film, a remake of Sentimental by Cesc Gay. The aforementioned rule change has not so much worked a miracle as it has brought about a coincidence. Until last year, if the same actor appeared twice in the same category, the option with fewer votes was discarded, and the spot was moved. Not anymore. But that, indeed, is bureaucracy. Shearer, Cruz, and indeed, "the fantasy of possibility," as Nené would say.
"To the person who wrote to tell me, I can't say out loud what I replied. I got so nervous that as soon as I answered, I had to rush to delete what I had written," the actress recently commented regarding the first time the Shearer question arose, let's call it that. Her comment took place at the Venice Film Festival, the traditional stage for everything that will be awarded from the end of the year until March 14, the main gala day. At that time, nothing, or little, was known about the explosion of La bola negra after its subsequent triumph at the Toronto Film Festival. "In truth, all this is not so much fuel for the ego —although I don't hide that it's a high and it's healthy and human that it is— as it is to realize that they still count on you for interesting characters and roles, which is what matters to me in this work and what has mattered to me since day one. All this about awards is not my driving force, it's not what makes me happy. What matters is the other," she said, surely as Shearer said at some point in her life.
The hypothetical double nomination would place the actress from Alcobendas in the group of the 20 performers with the most mentions (six in total) alongside legends like Deborah Kerr or Vanessa Redgrave. But beyond the statistics, what is glimpsed is a new, more mature, deeper, much more delicate path. In the first scene of Búnker, the camera focuses on her face. She simply remains silent, listening to what Bardem's character says. And in that silence between irony, sorrow, mystery, and something different that the viewer will have to discover gradually, like the secrets that matter, a range only reachable by the greatest is glimpsed. The Penélope of La bola negra is the direct heir of Raimunda from Volver or Macarena from The Girl of Your Dreams or, pushing it, of María Elena from Vicky Cristina Barcelona. In her, the fiery and unique performer who stirs, enlivens, and breathes life into the space around her like no one else is easily recognizable. No one moves their arms in tune with their blood like she does.
In the Venice conversation, the actress mentioned that careers are built not only on each success but also on each sacrifice. "As important as the yeses are, so are the noes," she said. It could be added that as relevant as the written script lines are, so are the others, the ones that only the gaze provided by the time of an entire career can pronounce. Silently. The fantasy of possibility.