London, Feb 7: Hollywood actress Penelope Cruz, who began her journey to Hollywood at the tender age of 15, has revealed that she worked herself up to exhaustion when she was new to the film industry.

The `Vanilla Sky' actress, who has been nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Woody Allen's `Vicky Cristina Barcelona', has revealed that after accomplishing herself as an artist, and overcoming her struggle with flying colors, she now feels more content as a human being.

"I''ve worked myself to exhaustion in the past," the Telegraph quoted her as saying.

"But now my life feels more balanced. Once my life was all about work, yet now I do take time for myself. It was a hard lesson to learn that sometimes it is so much healthier to say no even to a role that you like," she added.

Cruz is all set to appear in a Spanish-language thriller, Broken Embraces, her fourth collaboration with filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.

"Pedro treats human confusion with such beautiful irony," she said. (ANI)