Penelope Cruz turns blonde for Almodovar

MADRID (Reuters Life!) - Dark-haired Spanish star Penelope Cruz will don a platinum blond wig for her role as a struggling actress in the latest film by Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar.

Cruz has already been rehearsing in Spain for months for her role in "Broken Embraces" which is now beginning filming and also stars Lluis Homar as a writer who goes blind.

"I'm not sure that the film is going to be good, but for me the important thing is to be excited by it," Almodovar told a news conference together with his actors.

Cruz was the first Spanish woman to be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars for a non-English-speaking role in 2007 for her part in Almodovar's last film, "Volver" (The Return), in which she played a woman who killed her abusive husband.

In "Broken Embraces", a bewigged Cruz will play a would-be actress from Spain's provinces who is pursued by an unscrupulous financier.

Almodovar, Spain's most famous director, is known for melodramatic tragedy mixed with frenetic comedy in films like "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" and "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!".