Penélope Cruz Calls Meryl Streep Her 'Number One Hero': 'Every Time I See Her I Run to Hug Her'

Penélope Cruz watched Meryl Streep's Academy Museum Gala speech "twenty times to make sure" Streep actually shouted her out while accepting the Icon Award

Penélope Cruz is a huge admirer of Meryl Streep.

At a recent BAFTA Life In Pictures event in London honoring Cruz, 49, the actor spoke to her three decades of experience in the film industry and cited Streep, 74, when asked whom she's most eager to collaborate with for the first time, according to Deadline.

“Meryl Streep. I’m always begging my agents to take me to her set, just to bring her coffee or anything,” Cruz joked.

“Every time I see her, I run to hug her. And she’s so patient because every time I act like this is the first time I do it," she added, noting that she "could not believe it" when Streep named her in a speech after Streep received an Icon Award at the 3rd Annual Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles. The award is meant to "[celebrate] an artist whose career has had a significant global cultural impact," per an Academy press release.

"And I watched [Streep's speech] twenty times to make sure," Cruz told a London audience on Monday. "It was like she knows that I exist, you know? She is my number one number one hero and would love to work with her.”

Related: All About Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem's 2 Children

While Cruz and Streep have yet to make a film together, they did once co-star in a magazine shoot for anti-AIDS charity (RED) that Cruz dubbed "the most interesting love scene I’ve ever done" back in 2012, according to Vanity Fair.

“I kiss her whenever I see her! She must think I’m crazy," Cruz said of Streep at the time.

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Streep appeared at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures for the gala ceremony Sunday with  her four children with ex Don Gummer: son Henry Wolfe Gummer, 44, plus daughters Mamie Gummer, 40, Grace Gummer, 37, and Louisa Jacobson, 32. Henry's wife Tamryn Gummer and Grace's husband Mark Ronson also accompanied the group.

Related: Adam Driver Speeds Into the Life of Ferrari Founder Enzo Ferrari in First Trailer for Michael Mann's New Movie

Cruz costars with Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley and Patrick Dempsey in the upcoming racing biopic Ferrari, centered around Ferrari automobile founder Enzo Ferrari in 1957. Cruz plays Ferrari's wife Laura, whom she noted at the BAFTA event was one of the Ferrari company's first investors, per Deadline.

"She was a woman that had lost a child out of an illness and that had also broken the relationship, and I saw that there was no compassion for her," she said of the role, as the outlet reported. "Probably because she was involved in the business and that was not welcome. It was in those years very difficult for a woman to have a voice in a company like that…But I’m sorry, I feel it’s still today the case in so many places around the world."

Ferrari is in theaters Dec. 25.

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