Sofia Vergara feared she would be "excommunicated" by nuns at her school after she posed for a sexy photo.

The 39-year-old star was discovered when she was just a teenager. She was relaxing on a beach with her mother when a man asked to take her photograph and she went on to shoot a commercial for Pepsi.

However, things almost didn't work out that way.

"I didn't want him to take the photo because I was going to this strict Catholic girls' school and I thought the nuns would have me excommunicated!" she laughed.

Sofia's mother eventually convinced her there would be no hard in allowing the gentleman to take a picture of her. She's thankful every day that her mom was there to give her advice, otherwise her career might never have taken off.

"My mother, who is much cooler and more liberal than I am, told the photographer, Go ahead, take the photo!'" she recalled in the British edition of OK! magazine. "And really that's kind of how everything started."