Penélope Cruz got candid about her fear of driving after watching her younger sister, Mónica Cruz, get hit by a car.
“I have a fear of driving,” the Oscar winner told Elle in an interview published Thursday. “My sister was run over by a car in front of me when I was 8 or 9.”
The “Vanilla Sky” actress, 49, vividly recalled the day of the accident, explaining how “time stopped” as she went into shock.
“It’s a great trauma, because I saw her losing consciousness. And I was numb in the hospital, telling people, ‘Oh, my sister just got run over by a car,'” she said.
Mónica, 46, eventually made a full recovery, but the four-time Golden Globe nominee admitted she “would have been hysterical” if she witnessed the terrifying incident as an adult.
Penélope was reminded of her childhood trauma while promoting director Michael Mann’s sports thriller “Ferrari.”
The “Vicky Christina Barcelona” star portrayed Laura Ferrari in the film alongside Adam Driver, who played Italian race car driver Enzo Ferrari.
One part of the storyline navigates how Laura and Enzo handled the loss of their son Dino.
Penélope said she struggled at times with her role as a grieving mother given the emotional memory of her sister’s accident and her hypersensitivity to other people’s feelings.
“I’m lucky to have it, but maybe it makes me feel or suffer things more,” she told the publication, adding that she grapples with the “back-and-forth dance between fiction and reality” when acting.
“It’s been one of the main things I deal with in therapy: how to work a balance so I can keep feeling those things without making those feelings my own,” she explained.
Luckily, the “Blow” star never had to worry about getting behind the wheel for the movie. In fact, Driver revealed they wouldn’t even let him drive the luxury cars due to insurance concerns.
“Making a movie is a miracle and they don’t want me touching the thing that’s the most expensive part,” the “House of Gucci” actor, 40, said at a press conference in August 2023.
“I don’t drive the cars, except in pre-production we raced Ferraris — obviously, newer Ferraris, can’t afford the other ones. And then at the beginning, I’m not driving that one, it’s on a dolly.”
