From poverty and bullying to the Oscars – the actress who refused to break

She also had a younger sister, and as children, the two “played outside until it was dark,” she recalled in an interview with The Guardian. They would wish “the light would stay longer, so you didn’t have to go home.”

For years, she remained private about her childhood — and understandably so.

Later in life, she remembered being bullied as early as age 8 because of her red hair and freckles.

”I was told every day at school that I was ugly,” she told Glamour. ”And that no one wanted to be my friend. The most cruel things.”

Tragically, in 2003, her sister died by suicide at their biological father’s home, and Michael Monasterio later passed away in 2013 from bronchitis.

When her father passed away, the award-winning actress didn’t attend the funeral and didn’t speak publicly about his death. She later described the attention around it as “very difficult.” She also revealed that no father was listed on her birth certificate and there’s “no proof of anything.”

Financial hurdles

While most lot of the women around her had kids as teenagers, our star knew that wasn’t the path for her. She found her true passion at just 7 years old when she saw a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.Continue reading…