We have a documentary film festival in Mexico. It's really original. It's called Ambulante, and it's a film festival that travels around several cities in Mexico.
Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.
I always laugh a lot when I see the dramas that I end up doing. I see myself behaving very seriously and I'm like, 'What is this?'
When it's good, cinema can be one of the most important things in a person's life. A film can be a catalyst for change. You witness this and it is an incredibly spiritual experience that I'd never lived before; well, maybe only in a football match.
In Mexico we have a trick - add a crystal of salt to the kettle and the tea tastes better, almost English. But after four pots, your kettle's broken.
Alexander Gonzalez Inarritu is a great director. He's the one I first worked with. He's amazing.
Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols.
I always wanted to act, but I never thought it would be my profession. I thought that I'd end up doing other things, but that in the meantime I'd do plays.
When confronted with a clear definition of what it is to be Mexican, we encounter ourselves in a never ending allegory of mixes and chaos.
It is quite common to meet people that live a few kilometers away from Mexico and that have never been there.
I think in a sense seeing how films have changed me and seeing how fiction moves me more than facts in many ways, and I think that I can talk for many people that fiction moves us more than real life, it certainly helps us to set forth on this a journey of a utopia, which can never be achieved.
I was asked to go to Cannes to present Amores Perros. And little did I know that this film would be huge. I saw it for the first time in Cannes, and it was the first time I'd seen myself on such a big screen. And it had a huge impact on me - it was the strangest feeling.
Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it.
The collective experience of watching a great film together in a room is a transcendent moment that will never die.
It's very difficult to raise money, especially in the United States, for independent movies.
In Mexico you have death very close. That's true for all human beings because it's a part of life, but in Mexico, death can be found in many things.
In Mexico, theater is very underground, so if youre a theater actor its very difficult to make a living. But its also a very beautiful pathway to knowledge and to an open education.
Mexican food is far more varied than people think. It changes like dialects. I was brought up in Jalisco by the sea on a basic diet - tomatoes, chillis, peppers of every size and rice, which is a Mexican staple. The Pacific coast has a huge array of seafood.
In a comedy, after the day is done, you can figure out ways of how to make it even funnier for the next day. In dramas, it's very different - the mindset that you're in.
We all have a cross-gender character: Every woman has a man that they can play, and every man has a woman that they can play.
In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America.
I was brought up the Mexican way, where actors are paid very little and every part you take is an act of faith. If people respect that, then great.
Recently I've been doing risottos. Some of them have been amazing. Some of them, not all of them.
I think the water dictates how food will taste in a country. In England the apples taste unlike apples grown in any other place. England is an island, there's a lot of salt in the air and in the water. I think that has something to do with it.
In terms of work, obviously acting is such a job that is very in the flesh kind of thing. It's your work, but it's your life, in a way. You can get so mixed up.
