I’m standing in an olive grove, high in the hills of Cephalonia The Ionian Sea is twinkling brightly through the branches Nearby, a goat is tethered, casually chewing on some leaves. Between the trees, the members of a film crew are scattered, silently waiting. They are finding it almost impossible to shoot, because of the racket made by the crickets and, occasionally, the goat It is very, very hot. In its absurdity, the situation is worthy of the story they are here to tell, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
But despite the problems, there is an air of joviality on set. Much of the vibe comes from the actors, Christian Bale and Pen?pe Cruz, who are joking with each other, she laughing hysterically, throughout the endlessly delayed scene; and from the island itself, which appears to intoxicate the most frantic of visitors. But there’s a calming influence about the project, too ­ for Louis de Berni?s’ bestseller, a tragicomic romance set during the Italian occupation of Cephalonia during the Second World War, is one of the most popular must-read novels of the past decade.

With Nicolas Cage leading a classy cast, and Shakespeare in Love’s John Madden at the helm, everyone feels they’re dealing with something special.Not least Cruz, the young Spanish actress who plays Pelagia, the doctor’s daughter who falls in love with Cage’s mandolin-playing Corelli “I was in a plane when I first read the script. And it touched my heart so much,” she recalls, dreamily, after finally finishing for the day “I thought ‘this character is a present from God’. Then Madden called me, I did a test, and he told me that some parts belong to certain people.” This one, apparently, belonged to her.But then, a lot of parts belong to Cruz just now. Already a superstar in her native country ­ where she made her name as the nubile heroine of Jam?Jam?and consolidated it with a moving, somehow convincing performance as a pregnant nun with Aids in Almod?’s All About My Mother ­ she is currently in the process of conquering Hollywood. After a quiet English-language debut in Stephen Frears’ western The Hi-Low Country, she has racked up leading roles opposite a gaggle of A-list stars ­ Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, and Cage, and the gossip pages can’t get enough of her, endless stories suggesting that Cruz has had flings with each of those actors (all denied). This month, she graces the cover of American Premiere, the glossy flag-waver for Hollywood, with the headline inside, “Is Pen?pe Cruz too beautiful for words?”.Hyperbole aside, the genuinely talented 26-year-old is set to make the transition from European actress to international star.

Once, with the likes of Garbo and Bergman, Bardot, Deneuve, and Loren, this was commonplace. Today, it’s the kind of status that Juliette Binoche, perhaps alone of her generation, has achieved. Cruz, though, is the first ever Spanish-speaking actress to “cross over”. Hollywood, it seems, is particularly resistant to Spanish charms. As she says, with a strange hint of pride, “Antonio [Banderas] is the only one who has been working there. Nobody else”.She is sitting on the edge of the grove, in the ruined village of Dichalia, destroyed in the earthquake of 1953 but now the site for the film’s fictional (and largely artificial) village.

And, still wearing her costume of long skirt, flimsy blouse and sandals, she seems exhausted. “Physically, I could keep working, but psychologically, I’m exhausted some days,” she says. “This movie is three different love stories, between Pelagia and Corelli, Pelagia and Mandras [Bale] and Pelagia and her father [John Hurt] Of course, I am in all of them. These kinds of scenes can make me feel happy; sometimes they can act as a kind of therapy; but they also take a lot out of me.”Perhaps because of the rumour-mongering involving her leading men, she is circumspect to the point of blandness about Cage. “During rehearsals, we were learning to dance, and Nic was singing, playing the mandolin, riding motorcycles He was great. I was scared at the beginning, because I am working in a language that is not mine, with people whom I admire But they were all so helpful.