Cressida Bonas' parents don't approve of her career.

The 26-year-old beauty - who previously dated Prince Harry - is a trained dancer and is launching an acting career but her mother Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon and father Jeffrey Bonas wish she would find a ''proper'' way of earning a living.

She said: ''They think it's not a proper way of earning a living and they think I'm too sensitive.''

However, the 'Tulip Fever' actress, who was a junior associate at the Royal Ballet School when she was just nine years old, credits her upbringing for her interest in performance.

Cressida - who was five when her parents divorced - said: ''[I grew up in a house] full of drama - but drama in the best possible way, there was so much singing and dancing, mostly to musicals.''

While the socialite is comfortable on stage or in front of the camera, she admits she can be ''paralysingly'' shy in her every day life.

She said: ''I don't really understand it; in real life I'm often so shy - paralysingly so, but when I'm performing, it's totally different. I feel free.''

As well as her dancing and acting talents, Cressida has an unusual ''party trick''.

She told Miss Vogue magazine: ''I can bend my thumb back against my hand - it's my party trick.''