Everyone is dying to go to “La Bola Negra” (aka “The Black Ball”).
The epic drama, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, was the toast of Cannes, where it premiered in competition. It was rapturously received and kicked off a bidding war that was ultimately won by Netflix, which committed a lengthy theatrical release. And the movie next caused a stir at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of its Special Presentations section. Everything is coming up “La Bola Negra.”
And while the film is stacked with incredible Spanish performers, among them Guitarricadelafuente, Carlos González, Miguel Bernardeau, Lola Dueñas and Antonio de la Torre, there are also a pair of truly international heavy0hitters in the cast – Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close.
So how did the project land these legends?
Ambrossi told Jada Yuan at TheWrap’s studio at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival that Cruz actually came to them.
“We were at the middle of the writing process of the movie and we had an event where we presented the next movie we were about to shoot, and that evening she called,” Ambrossi said. “It was like, ‘Oh, it looks fine. Is there a role for me?’ And we almost fainted. So we rewrote her part in order to make it better and bigger and wider. And I said, ‘Maybe it’s too small for you.’ And she read it and she came back and is like, ‘Are you silly? It’s beautiful.’ And she said yes.”
“She wrote us at 3 a.m. one night – we got an email from Glenn Close. We made a show called ‘La Mesias’ and she said she loved it. She said like those images will stay in my heart forever, and she wanted to meet us. We met in New York for a project that we didn’t like but when we were writing ‘La Bola Negra,’ we had this historian,” Calvo said. The character was originally going to be a man but then they had a bright idea.
“Javi said, ‘Who can we offer this?’ And it was like, ‘Well, we know Madonna and Glenn Close. We’ll go with Glenn Close. We’re going try.’ And I said to him, ‘I don’t think she would say yes. It’s in Spanish. It’s a small role,’ but she said, ‘Yeah, of course I’ll do it. Let me read it,’” said Calvo. “She said it was the most beautiful script she had read in in a long time, and she said, ‘I’ll do it. But it’s a challenge for me, I’ll do it in Spanish.’”
The team hired her a teacher and worked with Close while she was working on the upcoming “Hunger Games” movie (also out later this year)
“You can tell she knows Spanish,” Calvo said.
Ambrossi stresses that Close didn’t really beat out Madonna for the role, they were just the only two celebrities that the directors knew.
“We were like, Who would add some pop? And Glenn knows how to make the people fall in love with her,” said Ambrossi.
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