Penelope Cruz will always have “something new to learn” in her career.

The ‘L’Immensita’ actress turns 50 next year but insisted hitting the milestone isn’t making her look at acting differently because she is as passionate as ever about her work and she’s excited about the opportunities still to come her way.

Asked if turning 50 makes her feel different about life and work, she told Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “No. I just love acting. That’s the reason why I became an actress and why I’m still acting now, I love exploring and learning.

“I know that there are some things I’ll be able to do in 20 years that I can’t do now, so there will always be something new to learn.

“I’ll always be a student in my profession. That takes away a lot of fears.”

The Spanish actress wanted to act from a young age and used to spend hours at a time “studying” the customers in her mother’s hair salon in order to get a grasp on a wide variety of scenarios, which she felt would be useful for the future.

She said: “I knew I wanted to act from when I was about five years old, so I’d pretend to be doing my homework in my mother’s salon but I was really studying all the women and listening to what they were saying – not out of a necessity to gossip, just through fascination and wanting to understand different realities and situations.”