The Compassion of Penélope Cruz

The noted empath, devoted mother, and mesmerizing star of Ferrari is hard not to fall in love with

- By Sloane Crosley. Photographed by Zoey Grossman

Penélope Cruz would like nothing more than to feed me ham. So much so that these are her first words when I meet her at her production company, 30 minutes north of Madrid: "Hello.

Nice to meet you. Ham?" Her iconic accent, so enticing to Americans she could have a robust side career in sleep stories, turns the word to "hum." I had not factored in this scenario, three decades ago, when I decided to give up meat. "Oh, well," she says, eyes on her office door, pulling out a chair. "Ham is coming in about 20 minutes." The 49-year-old Academy Award-winning star of countless films (well, IMDb can count them, but even the most avowed Cruzphile would have trouble rattling them off), including All About My Mother, Volver, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Parallel Mothers, and Vanilla Sky (twice, if you include Open Your Eyes) is disarmingly easygoing. True, this combination of mystique and personability is well-calibrated. She'll be the first to admit that "I'm programmed to protect myself," but it can't possibly have any bearing on her fly being open.

"Ah," she says, looking down past her chunky pink Chanel sweater and belt, buttoning her jeans. "Always, always, I don't know the answer to that. I don't do it on purpose." Cruz's warm demeanor-she's a natural comic, her smile takes up a greedy amount of real estate on her face, and she speaks with real tenderness about the last time she saw Karl Lagerfeld, when he convinced her to take a late-night stroll through Central Park-exists in sharp contrast to her latest role of Laura Ferrari, the hardened wife of Enzo Ferrari (played by Adam Driver) in Michael Mann's breakneck biopic Ferrari.