Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz’s Romance Rewind: From Co-Stars To Couple

Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in 2003

When you think about Tom Cruise’s romantic history, the two big names that spring to mind have got to be Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes. But between these two great loves, he was in a perfect-on-paper relationship with fellow Hollywood mega-talent Penelope Cruz. Let’s take a look back at the Cruise-Cruz union that made for some seriously cute headlines at the start of the century …

How it Began

It’s the Hollywood classic: they met on the set of Vanilla Sky in 2000. At the time, Cruise — then 38 — was going through a divorce from Kidman, his wife of 10 years, so it wasn’t until the following year, 2001, that they actually began dating. “Tom Cruise invited Penélope Cruz to his 39th birthday party on July 6, and they’ve had a few dates since,” Pat Kingsley, Cruise’s publicist at the time, confirmed to the press. The couple danced together at the party in Santa Monica and, only a week later, flew to Fiji to a luxe resort Cruise had been scheduled to visit with Kidman before their divorce. Awkward.

In the years since, both parties have maintained that nothing happened while they were shooting Vanilla Sky, with Cruz telling The Telegraph in 2008, “I’ve never fallen in love with someone I’m working with. It’s always been afterwards.”

Cruise, on the other hand, has fallen in love on a film set — he and Nicole Kidman met while making Days Of Thunder in 1989 and married the following year.

How Long it Lasted

Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise in 2004

It might not be remembered as one of Cruise’s most significant relationships, but this was no brief fling: the pair were together for almost three years. However, because they were both seriously booked up in their careers at the time, they didn’t get to spend all their time together.

Between meeting in 2000 and splitting in early 2004, Cruise shot Mission: Impossible 2, Minority Report, The Last Samurai and Collateral, along with picking up a few exec-producer and cameo credits, while Cruz, who was 27 when they started dating, starred in Captain Correli’s Mandolin, Blow, Head In the Clouds and several foreign language titles. These two were busy!

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How it Ended

Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise in 2002

Speculation that the couple were on the rocks began in early 2004, when Cruise attended the Golden Globes alone while Cruz was visiting her family in Spain. But it wasn’t until spring of the same year that the split was confirmed by the pair’s respective publicists — and, naturally, it was all handled extremely calmly and maturely.

“They broke up at the end of January, and it’s amicable,” Cruise’s sister and publicist, Lee Anne DeVette, confirmed to the media in March 2004. Cruz’s spokesman, Robert Garlock, added: “They remain good friends and still talk often. There is no other person involved.”

Garlock also made a point of pre-empting any speculation that Cruise’s devotion to the Church of Scientology could be a factor in the split for Cruz, saying that the actress “is not a Scientologist, but she has taken church courses and she’s found them beneficial.”

What They Said About Each Other

Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in 2001

Everyone knows that when Tom Cruise is in love, he likes to tell people about it — and, true to form, although he didn’t jump on any couches, he was pretty open in interviews about his affection for Cruz. “As a person and on film, she invites you in, and she’s incredibly romantic, and yet, real, you know?” he told Vanity Fair in January 2002. “I thought, My God, I’m your boyfriend. You’re my girlfriend! … Cruise and Cruz! She’s beautiful. She’s a very skilled actress, but has an effortless quality about her. You look at Audrey Hepburn. She had that kind of elegance and yet was accessible.”

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Later in their relationship, Cruise was still smitten, telling Marie Claire in 2003 that he loved surprising Cruz. “She’ll come home, and I’ll have her favorite kind of food made and have a bath drawn,” he said. “I like doing stuff like that. She likes my food, so I cook for her. It’s always the little things I like in a relationship.”

While Cruz was generally more guarded about her feelings for Cruise, on the publicity trail for Vanilla Sky she praised his “generosity” and said that he “cares about everyone that is around him.”

What They Say Now

Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise in 2002

There are no hard feelings between these two. In fact, in 2015, more than a decade after the split, they even went out for dinner in London with their mutual friend Salma Hayek, and Cruise was photographed leaving the restaurant with a red lipstick mark on his cheek which could have been planted by either gorgeous, scarlet-lipped actress! Or maybe both? Some guys have all the luck.

Cruz has also referenced the relationship in interviews over the years. “I am friends with all the people I have been with,” she told The Guardian in 2006. “I am very good friends with the people who have meant something in my life, and I am so protective to the people who have been good to me, so I’m like a lion with that, and Tom is a very good man, and I am close to his whole family, his children. I love his children, and his mum, and all of his family, and he’s a great man.”

Cruz also emphasized again that, despite the still-persistent rumors, Scientology had nothing to do with the break-up. “I would feel bad with myself if I didn’t say that I was grateful to [Scientology] because of what I’ve learned about it,” she said.

Key Relationship Takeaways

Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky (2001)

These two were totally gorgeous together and it certainly looked like fun while it lasted; probably just what Cruise needed after the heaviness of his high-profile marriage to Kidman ending.

Now, though, we can’t imagine a world in which Cruz, who turned 50 this year, isn’t blissfully happy with Javier Bardem, who she married in 2010 (although not before dating Matthew McConaughey in between the two. This woman goes for some seriously charismatic men!). The couple share two children: son Leo, 13, and daughter Luna, 11.

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Meanwhile, Cruise was married to Holmes from 2006 — when their daughter Suri, now 18, was seven months old — to 2012 and hasn’t had a super-serious relationship since. He seems OK with it — at 62, he’s enjoying a glittering social life — but maybe it’s time to book in another friendly catch-up with Cruz and Hayek, and see if they have any single friends they could set him up with? Red lipstick optional.