Actress Zoe Saldana felt herself "dying inside" every time she took part in ballet classes as a teen - because she desperately wanted to use her voice to express her emotions.

The Avatar beauty lived in her father's native Dominican Republic as a youngster and she enrolled in a specialised dance school - but she quickly discovered she loathed ballet because she hated performing in silence.

She tells Cosmopolitan for Latinas, "I had to quit ballet because it felt like a part of me was dying inside. It takes a lot of courage to face up to things you can't do because we feed ourselves so much denial.

"In dance, you use every part of your body except your voice. I wanted to start acting because I wanted to use my voice."