PENELOPE CRUZ attends `Captain Corelli's Mandolin' premiere with Tom Cruise

<br>LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Penelope Cruz showed up at the premiere of her new movie, ``Captain Corelli's Mandolin,'' with a certain someone: Tom Cruise. <br><br>The pair walked arm-in-arm down

Tuesday, August 14th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Penelope Cruz showed up at the premiere of her new movie, ``Captain Corelli's Mandolin,'' with a certain someone: Tom Cruise.

The pair walked arm-in-arm down the red carpet at Monday's premiere as they posed for a multitude of cameras. Earlier in the day during a taping of NBC's ``The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,'' the 27-year-old actress nodded in agreement when asked whether she was dating Cruise.

Leno asked her how she deals with the media attention surrounding her romance with Cruise.

``I think you manage to find ways to live your life,'' Cruz said. ``With this, I don't have a problem saying this is true. I don't want to get into details because it's something I want to protect and I am very happy about.''

Cruise, 39, arrived alone last week for the premiere of ``The Others,'' which stars his ex-wife, Nicole Kidman. He was one of the film's executive producers.

Cruise and Cruz started dating after working together on ``Vanilla Sky,'' Cameron Crowe's romantic thriller which opens in December.