Trueba reveals details of Queen of Spain film starring Penelope Cruz

The film is a follow-up to The Girl Of Your Dreams (2000), the Goya-award winning feature about a Spanish film crew shooting a film at UFA Studios in late 1930s Nazi-era Berlin.

The other stars of the original film, among them Jorge Sanz and Santiago Segura, have also agreed to appear in the film and there is now a completed script.

Trueba talked about the project when giving the Binger/Screen International interview at the Holland Film Meeting in Utrecht on Friday evening.

The new film is set in the Franco-era Spain of the 1950s - as big American film companies begin to come to the country to shoot runaway productions like El Cid and The Fall Of The Roman Empire.

“One of the happiest experiences of my life was making Girl Of Your Dreams,” said Trueba.

The Spanish writer-director called the eight leading actors from Girl Of Your Dreams and told them he was planning a sequel - but that he wouldn’t go ahead unless they all wanted to be involved.

“They said, yes, please, write it.”

Earlier this summer, Trueba held a reading of the script for the actors. “It was a very happy reunion. We cooked a pasta and had dinner together.”

Cruz will again play a movie actress. Trueba himself will produce and is looking for collaborators in France and the US.

Trueba helped kick start Cruz’s career when he cast the young actress as one of the sisters in the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992). As the director revealed, he initially turned Cruz down for the part on the grounds that she was “too sexy.”

“I’d seen her (Cruz) on TV in a show,” he recalled. “I was looking for a very young actress for the character of 14 or 15 year-old girl, very pure

“When they proposed to me that I had to see Penelope, I (said) ‘this girl on Channel 5. She’s a sexual bomb! I don’t want even to test her.”

In the end, Cruz was allowed to audition - and Trueba realised she’d be perfect for the role.

On Girl Of Her Dreams, Trueba again at first resisted casting Cruz as he wanted an actress from Andalusia. For a second time, he changed his mind.

“She (Cruz) kept on telling me her grandmother was from Andalusia.”