Ferrari star Penelope Cruz is 'terrified' of driving after witnessing sister's severe accident

Penelope Cruz has a fear of getting behind the wheel after seeing her sister get hit by a car.

The Ferrari actress admitted she had a "great trauma" at age nine after her younger sibling Mónica Cruz was run over and lost consciousness.

She told Elle magazine: "I have a fear of driving. My sister was run over by a car in front of me when I was eight or nine. I remember she was wearing a red coat.

"And for me, time stopped. It’s a great trauma, because I saw her losing consciousness. And I was numb in the hospital, telling people, ‘Oh, my sister just got run over by a car.’”

Monica fully recovered, but Penelope believes she "would have been hysterical" if she witnessed the accident as an adult.

Cruz, who shares sons Leo, 12, and 10-year-old Luna with actor husband Javier Bardem, says therapy has helped her to cope, and the counselling sessions also help her strike a balance between playing her characters and her real life.

"There's a back-and-forth dance between fiction and reality," she said. “I’m lucky to have it, but maybe it makes me feel or suffer things more.

"I can feel it; it’s like a hypersensitivity in every way - visually, to sound, to people’s feelings.

"It’s been one of the main things I deal with in therapy," she explained. "How to work a balance so I can keep feeling those things without making those feelings my own.”

"Sometimes [the characters I play] can be uncomfortable and painful," she explained. "It’s hard to let them go."