Wednesday January 20, 2010

PENELOPE Cruz wanted to be a ballet dancer when she was younger.

The Oscar-winning actress — who appears alongside an all star cast in the musical movie Nine — has revealed as a child she had no ambition to become a movie star.

“I still can’t believe that I won the Oscar last year because of the way I grew up,” said Cruz, who bagged the Best Supporting Actress gong for her role in Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

“Just to dream about becoming an actress and making a living out of that sounded like science fiction in my environment. You know, I come from a family where we had just what we needed to survive. So to dream about this type of job was crazy.

“If I hadn’t had the discipline of all those years in the dance world, it would have been much, much tougher.

“I mean, it goes too far sometimes. I mean, I used to take my toenails — they would die from dancing — so I would just take the whole toenail and throw it away, and not feel anything.

“But I loved it.”

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