As a young actor, I booked a movie in the U.S. I didn't speak any English at the time, so I learned my lines phonetically when I auditioned for it.
I believe in creative work.
There are some actors that are so gifted, that move you in such a way that every time you see their names again, you go and pay another ticket because you want to have that experience again.
A lot of people love Tarantino’s films because they’re spectacular, they’re beautiful, they’re wonderful. He hires the best group of artists - not only actors, but everyone around: best photographers, best set designers, best production designers, costume designers. A lot of people love his films because they’re bloody, they’re gory, they’re savage. But very few people see that he’s a very political director.
The real secret to guacamole is that you use exactly the elements that you need, which is cilantro, onion, tomato, and jalapenos. And, of course, avocado.
Scarlett Johansson. I think people don't really realize how great of an actress that girl is. She's so beautiful and that distracts you from what she can do as an actor.
I grew up in the theater. I began my career at 3. That was the first time I stepped onto a provisional stage.
One of my dreams is to become sufficiently famous that I can play this charity match that happens every year or two with celebrities at Old Trafford, at the house of Manchester United.
One wants to think that - and this is really a stupid thought - that through your art or whatever you do as an actor you can actually affect someone else's lives and thoughts or whatever.
It's a really, really hard life when you don't have a document that actually gives you a name and a face.
I have tried to defend what is most precious to our American society, a society that is now at war against the forces of racial intolerance.A big part of me making the decision was how important the play is for the times that we live in. This is a classic. It's a masterpiece of American playwriting. It's about discrimination and it's about we Mexicans being a target for so many years.
I like playing human beings - I don't believe in good or bad. I don't believe in black and white. I believe in different tonalities. I believe in different layers of emotions and states of mind. I believe in characters that can be human.
People say that the brain is a muscle and that one of the best exercises for any brain is learning another language and to switch from one to another as much as you can. I've found out that when I have trouble regarding any character or any particular scene in English, sometimes I'll switch to Spanish and I'll solve the problem that I've encountered. If I'm working in Spanish and I don't know how to approach certain scenes or certain emotions, or how to say this and that, I just switch to English to try to solve it that way and it works.
A lot of the things that I’ve learned in the past have been from dear friends. Rodriguez’s favorite line is “Fácil!” Easy! He makes things easy. He doesn’t complicate his life. He’s obsessed with perfection, but he makes it easy, and that’s pretty much the way I work as an actor.
I open my eyes and my ears, and that’s why I work.
I’m an actor who’s accustomed to bringing a lot of stuff to the table, and you have to be ready because some of them will be accepted and some of them will be rejected. Then you need a generous, free, fearless, loving director like Tarantino to allow you to take those risks.
If you think about portraying Americans, for example, in a Russian film, it all depends on where the American is from, if they went to school or not, and if they're well-educated or not. Is it an American from Texas, or an American from Brooklyn? Things would change with the vocabulary and the accent.
When your show keeps coming back, year after year, you have a responsibility because your fans know your show sometimes better than you do. You can't play games with them. You have to be really focused and concentrated, and play at your best in every department. The writing staff has to be fantastic. Our director line-up has to be great. Everything has to be better and better. Your fans keep track of the details.
When you have great scripts, everything is very easy and fun.
The immigration issue is about the separation of families, and that is not human, in any country in the world, but especially in the United States. We should not root for a law that separates families.
I hope people can stop believing everything politicians say about Mexico and the United States, and the problems that we share.
We need to know the facts, in order to tell the politicians, "Excuse me, I don't want you to use my money on building a wall that is not going to solve any problems. We have to go this direction instead."
When I met Quentin [Tarantino], he told me what every actor wishes from any director. He said, "I've been through a Demián Bichir marathon. I've watched everything you've done." Most of the time, they don't even know what you've done.
Can you imagine saying ‘Hi’ to Sam Jackson and he goes and gives you a hug? It’s like being hugged by a lion.
One of the first things that my English teacher told when I began studying in New York was, "You're here because if you pick it up from the street, not everyone speaks good English." And it happens all the time, anywhere. If you pick up Spanish from the streets, you're not going to be able to speak it correctly.
