Paris, May 12 (IANS/EFE) Spanish actress Penelope Cruz said in an interview given to the French magazine Gala that being a mother is the best thing that has happened in her life and that it gives her a very "profound" feeling.

"I don't want to go into detail about my private life, but I have no problem saying how happy I am to have been a mother", having given birth last January, she told the magazine.

Cruz, who this year is returning to the Cannes Film Festival to present "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides", said that her son Leonardo will be raised in both the Spanish and US cultures and "will be bilingual" since she and Javier Bardem spend part of the year in Spain and the rest in Los Angeles.

The actress said that celebrating her first Mother's Day has been "a little strange" because up to now it has always been she who had sent flowers to her mother.

Cruz also took advantage of the interview to "clarify things" about the number of "crazy" articles that have been written recently about how she recovered her figure after giving birth, saying that she had "followed a Mediterranean regime, but one based on good food with calories".

She said another of her beauty secrets is being able to rely on two people who help her "continuously" with the baby, which allows her to get the sleep she needs after a long workday.