He was cast by Argentine playwright Roberto Cossa in a short film adaptation of his Los taitas ("The Uncles") and the following year, co-founded the Experimental Theatre Team of Buenos Aires (ETEBA) with Augusto Fernándes.

ETEBA produced an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, La leyenda de Pedro, which was well received and earned Cruz international esteem following its tour through festivals at Nancy, Berlin and Florence.

[2] Having been given a number of supporting film roles since his appearance in Los taitas, Cruz was cast as the happy-go-lucky ghost of an assassinated stockyards worker in Fernando Solanas' Sur (1987), a chronicle of the lives of a working-class southside borough in Buenos Aires during Argentina's brutal last dictatorship.

He devoted himself to his drama school, however, accepting only brief supporting roles in film until, in 1996, he was cast in Mario Levin's Sotto voce ("Whispers") as Walensky, a gruff southside bar owner embroiled in intrigue.

Some of the most notable have been that of a retired military officer guarding a family secret in Fito Páez's Vidas privadas (a 2001 drama that helped secure Mexican star Gael García Bernal's prominence in cinema) and as an aging intellectual facing a crossroads in life in Mario Sábato's India Pravile (2003), among others.