Will Penélope Cruz finally get behind the wheel? At 52 years old, the Spanish Oscar winner is considering finally getting her driver's license. The impetus came from an unusual gift, as Cruz told in the YouTube show Hot Ones.
'My friend Bono gave me a car for my last birthday... Crazy when you say it out loud,' she tells host Sean Evans. But the U2 singer 'actually gave me a car and I think that's the ultimate push to finally do it and learn to drive.'
Fear of Traffic
Until now, the actress hasn't been able to bring herself to do it because, according to her own statements, she has a pronounced fear of driving. Even as a passenger, she feels uncomfortable after a short time, as she described in her conversation with Evans. 'This fear runs so deep. Every time I get in a car, I think: 'Alright, here we go. Are we going to make it in one piece or not?'' says Cruz.
She now considers her worries to be a real phobia: 'I believe there's even a name for it. Recently a term was coined for it because there are many people who feel the same way I do.' In fact, the term vehophobia stands for the specific fear of driving, while the fear in vehicles in general, including as a passenger, is called amaxophobia.
Childhood Trauma
In an interview with ELLE magazine in 2024, Penélope Cruz had already spoken about her great fear. The reason is a traumatic experience: As a child, she had to witness her sister Mónica (49) being hit by a car. 'For me, time stood still in that moment. It was a major trauma because I saw her lose consciousness,' she recalled. Mónica made a complete recovery, but the images from that day remained.
Incidentally, Cruz's husband Javier Bardem (57) also avoids the wheel. At the premiere of the racing film F1, in which he plays a former race car driver, he admitted to People: 'It's quite funny when you consider that neither of us drives. She doesn't drive. And I barely know how to drive.'
