Penelope Cruz says it was "a pleasure" to "express a lot of rage" in new horror-romance The Bride: "Through a character like that, you can release so many things"

Penélope Cruz says playing an aspiring detective in new monster movie The Bride helped her "express a lot of rage" – and that she was so desperate for the role, she called writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal from the sidelines of her son's football game.

"I remember when I read it, because then I had to go quickly with my son to a football training, and I called from the football training," Cruz recalls to GamesRadar+. "I will always remember it, because I said, 'You've written an incredible script, and I hope you know that.' I felt very grateful that she was offering me that character. I loved Myrna and it was a pleasure to play her."

Secretary Myrna, whose gift for sniffing out clues is a huge asset to her bumbling badge-wearing bestie Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard), doesn't actually show up until halfway through the movie – as the pair try to catch up with Frank (Christian Bale) and his lover (Jessie Buckley) after they're spotted assaulting two men outside a nightclub.

Their investigation sets them on a collision course with the outlandish outlaws, who've taken it upon themselves to do an unofficial tour of Ronnie Reed's films. Reed, the fictional actor, is played by director Maggie Gyllenhaal's brother Jake. If they hit up certain cinemas along the map, they'll find the dangerous darlings, reckons Myrna.

As she and Wiles get closer to Frank and "Penny", though, she learns how the latter came to be – and why she's on a crusade of justice-dispensing and truth-telling of her own.

"Through a character like that, you can release so many things, because it represents all the things that you have not been able to say as a woman," adds Cruz. "When I started working, I was very young, and I've seen a lot of situations that were – maybe not as extreme as the ones that the Bride or Myrna saw in the 30s – but… Still today, there are so many things that I can see in many professions, not only in ours.

"We still have so much to do to get to a place where even, like, the fact that it's a director that is a woman, and it's a very big budget, and it still makes the news. To get to a place where that is normalized. I felt I could say and express a lot of that kind of… almost, like, rage about all the things that we all have experienced and continue to experience."

The Bride! releases on March 6. While we wait, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.