Penelope Cruz would "like to shoot" paparazzi who try to take her son's photo, her long-time film collaborator has joked.

The Hollywood beauty and husband Javier Bardem welcomed son Leo into the world in January last year. The family are famously private, and Penelope's friend and film director Pedro Almodovar has joked she'd go to great lengths to protect her child.

"She would like to shoot the paparazzi who try to take [her son Leo's] picture," he quipped in an interview with W magazine. "But seriously, I always knew Penlope would be an amazing mother. She has no fear of love. You can see that in her work."

Aside from working closely with Almodovar, Penelope has also starred in two of Woody Allen's films; To Rome with Love and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, picking up an Oscar for the latter.

The 38-year-old actress says the famously eccentric filmmaker was more than a little cool on their initial meeting.

"Fast. Very fast. We sat down for 30 seconds," she revealed about their introduction.

"He had seen Volver, and he thought I would be right for this character. And that was it. I never spoke to him again until we were shooting. ... People ask Woody, 'Do you spend a lot of time with your actors?' In front of all of us he says, 'No - I try to avoid the cast. They come to me with all these strange questions that I either don't know how to answer or I don't want to answer.' Somehow it works."