Calcutta Mission Trip Humbled Cruz

Spanish movie star Penelope Cruz is urging her spoiled peers to find somewhere that's full of real hardships so they'll understand what true suffering is.

The actress has no time for whining stars and insists she learned to be more positive about life after working alongside 20th century saint Mother TERESA in Calcutta, India.

Cruz reveals she worked in a mission with Mother Teresa for a week when she was younger, and the experience has made her eternally grateful for her lot in life.

The former girlfriend of Tom Cruise tells the LOS ANGELES TIMES newspaper, "People complain too much. They need to be in places where you see you have no reason to complain if you're healthy, and you have a plate of food every day in front of you, a family that loves you.

"All the basic things that sound like blah blah blah boring, at the end if you forget about those, you have nothing."

She admits she'll never forget the terrible images of homeless life she saw on that first trip to India, and she has been back since to help.

She adds, "I saw hell."

But it left her with a life lesson from Mother Teresa herself - one that the actress will never forget.

She recalls, "She said, 'Don't make a mistake of changing your life or changing your job... use it for things like this that you've seen here. Even if you help one person... it would make a difference.'"