Olivier Martinez gave up boxing for acting to make money

Washington, Apr 30 : French film actor Olivier Martinez has revealed that he gave up his childhood dream of becoming a boxer for the high paying job of an actor.

Martinez, 42, rose to fame in the 1995 film Le Hussard sur le Toit opposite Juliette Binoche, and gained international stardom in 2002 with box-office hit 'Unfaithful'.

The actor was trying to fulfill more than his athletic dreams in his youth, he had wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as a boxer.

He had fought as a welterweight throughout Europe before he attended Paris' prestigious French National Conservatory of Dramatic Art and began to shift his career focus.

"I wanted to be a boxer because I thought that's how I could make money. But I found a better way," Contactmusic quoted him as saying.

"With acting you can do it for much longer. And, if I like the part and the people I'm working with, I love my work. You play a bullfighter, a race-car driver, you get into a world that you don't know and you learn it," he said.

Martinez, who was raised in a working class Paris suburb, insists he is grateful for his international onscreen success.

"The people I grew up with, some are dead and some are in jail, and some are just working to make a living. A lot of the time, when you are born in the streets you stay in the streets," he added.

ANI