NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: I guess the Cruise and Cruz match-up has Hollywood buzzing.</s>KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: She would never have to change her name, right?</s>ALLEN: She could be Penelope Cruz-Cruise. Laurin Sydney, what do you think? Give us the scoop.</s>LAURIN SYDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Keep those initials on the towels. Thinks cruised along nicely at the Hollywood premier of Nicholas Cage's new movie "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" last night. Cage's onscreen love interest, Penelope Cruz, showed up with her new offscreen love interest, Tom Cruise. The two strolled arm in arm down the red carpet to talk about the film, but questions about the new love match had Ms. Cruz steering the topic elsewhere.</s>PENELOPE CRUZ, ACTOR: To be able to work with your</s>QUESTION: Something that we see tonight, it seems like the real deal.</s>CRUZ: I'm very happy, so -- I don't talk a lot about it but I'm very happy.</s>SYDNEY: On the eve of a new report by the NAACP on minority casting comes some news from the Screen Actors Guild. The actors union released statistics for the year 2000 Monday, showing minority actors earning a record number of TV and movie roles. Of 53,134 roles cast last year, 22.9 percent went to minorities, up from 21.2 percent the year before. Now, that is the highest percentage since SAG started keeping statistics in 1992. Black actors were cast in 14.8 percent of those roles, Hispanics, 4.9 percent, and Asians 2.6 percent. Women, by the way, didn't fare as well as men. Men were cast in 62 percent of all roles. The NAACP releases its report on minority casting tomorrow. And still to come today, we'll say "g'day" to a country star from the land down under when "Showbiz Today Reports" continues.
Tom and Penelope at Cruz's Movie Opening