MICHAEL PENA - MATHEMATICS PAY OFF FOR PENA

MATHEMATICS PAY OFF FOR PENA

WORLD TRADE CENTER star MICHAEL PENA is using his mathematics skills to make sure he never has to work solely for the money. The Latino actor was a maths prodigy in school and he would regularly amaze teachers with his ability to solve complex problems. And now he's putting his gift to good use by building up a pension plan so he can make sure he never has to take a movie role just for the money. He says, "My math teacher in Chicago would put in a work problem and then I started noodling. He comes by and says, `You working on the problem?' "I had the answer already when everyone else was still working on it. He'd be like, `Man, you're in the wrong class!' He put mein college algebra that year and I was a junior in high school. "I'm still a math geek. Ever since I started out I put away a lot of money so I could not just do things for money. I could not work for a year and still have savings."