Penélope Cruz is running three separate campaigns this awards season. She has a role the size of a cameo in Netflix's La Bola Negra, a supporting turn in A24's The Invite, and the lead in Sony Pictures Classics' Bunker. No performer in recent memory has arrived at awards season with this much material in play.
La Bola Negra, the Federico García Lorca-inspired epic from directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, shared the best director prize at Cannes and took the People's Choice Award at TIFF. Netflix is campaigning the entire cast in the supporting actress category. Cruz plays a bawdy cabaret singer. The streamer gave the film a 47-day theatrical window beginning October 16, the longest in company history.
The Invite, Olivia Wilde's dinner-party comedy for A24 that opened over the summer, puts Cruz opposite Edward Norton in a second supporting contention. Bunker, Florian Zeller's follow-up to The Father for Sony Pictures Classics, casts her as a wife in a 17-year marriage alongside Javier Bardem. It is their eighth film together. The film bowed at Venice on September 8, and Cruz is positioned for lead actress.
The Academy recently updated its rules for the 99th ceremony: according to Variety, a performer can now earn two nominations in the same category if both performances finish in the top five vote-getters. That rule did not exist before this cycle. Whether Cruz's three films split her support or accumulate it is the question the next several months will answer.
