Rachel Weisz struggled with "anti-authority issues"

The `Oz: The Great and Powerful` actress acknowledges she was a disruptive pupil and was even "asked to leave" one school when growing up in London.

She told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper: "I was asked to leave North London Collegiate, but my mum doesn`t like me to say I was expelled.

"I didn`t try to burn down the school or anything like that; it was just anti-authority issues. I didn`t think the teachers had the right to tell me what to do.

"I would just disobey, talk in the classroom, get very bad grades.

"I was not a good person to have in the classroom, to put it mildly."

The 41-year-old actress eventually turned her life around and went on to study at England`s prestigious Cambridge University, which she largely credits to an English teacher, Miss Gough, at her next school, Benenden and St Paul`s.

She added: "I was very nearly asked to leave that school, too, for ongoing disobedience - the French teacher refused to teach me - but Miss Gough, who later became headmistress, completely inspired me.

"She saw through me and she scared me and I guess none of the other teachers did that. We read a lot of poetry.

"I started to read everything and ended up studying English at Cambridge."

Rachel - who married James Bond star Daniel Craig in June - also said they have both been hitting the gym, although she`s not planning on having muscles to match him anytime soon.

She said: "We`ve been to the gym together but we do very different training."

sections: Celebrities