Los Angeles - If anyone has an early lead in the race for Oscar buzz in Hollywood, it has to be Penelope Cruz, for her performance in Pedro Almodovar's new comedy "Volver."

The raven-haired Spanish beauty took home the top acting prize at Cannes for her work as a daughter who is haunted by her dead mother, and just won the Hollywood Film Awards "Actress of the Year" trophy.

So it's no surprise that she's working it a bit as the film opens Friday in L.A. and New York (and will roll out in other cities throughout the next months), hitting the red carpet Thursday night in Hollywood for the AFI Fest 2006 "Tribute to Penelope Cruz." Joined by her best pal Salma Hayek and friends ranging from Eva Mendes, Eve, Ricardo Chavira, Carl Lewis, and Ken Watanabe, Cruz upswept her hair and wore a one-shoulder Grecian-influenced gown with a long train - a bit overdressed compared to the others, but perhaps she was doing a test run for her Academy Awards jaunt next March?

The strong buzz on "Volver" began in Cannes, where Cruz told reporters that "this movie's very special," mostly because of the way Almodovar creates female characters. "Pedro can give you a character that you haven't done before. And he's done it for me in the few movies I've done with him. Three characters that I have never done before in my career, very different from what I am in my life, in my real life, and I love that he takes risks like that. He can see, before he's done it, he can see that you can do it."

Cruz, whose career in the United States has never been as successful as in her native country, bemoaned the lack of decent roles for women in Hollywood - even young (she's 32) gorgeous ones like she is.

"It would be great if there were more directors like Pedro in America, ones that write mainly for women and can write characters for women that are 60 and 80, like [there are] in this movie. Every generation is there. I wish there would be more opportunities like that for women in general," she said.

Ironically, no matter what role Penelope Cruz plays, be it in American films like "Sahara" or "Vanilla Sky" or Spanish movies that often have more depth, the actress insists that she can't stand most of the work that she does.

"I've done 35 movies," she recalled, "and there are only, like, four that I would say, 'okay, I am not going to go home and torture myself about what I did.' Only really like four or five out of 35."

"I have to learn to be a little less hard on myself. That's why, uh, right now, all the reviews of 'Volver' are great, but I've read some other reviews in the past that were not good. But they really don't affect me much because probably the one that I have written in my head for myself is much worse than anything anybody could write."

Luckily, Penelope Cruz is actually satisfied with her work in "Volver," a fact that should make it easier for her to ride the wave into awards season and beyond.

"All I can say is that I was very happy when I saw this movie. I was very happy with everything and I didn't torture myself at home. And that's a big, big thing for me!"