I'm a huge fan of the director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and his work, and I knew he was going to be an amazing actor's director, based on the performances that I saw in his movies.
Even in the darkest regions, people have discovered their right of freedom.
My first part was in a film where I played a sadomasochist who killed people and created fun orgies. I'm a method actor. I went to every orgy in the world.
When I was born, there was a very isolated idea of what it meant to be a man or a woman, and you belonged to one gender or the other.
I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else.
And the whole Oscar thing, that is just surreal: you spend months and months doing promotion, and then come back to reality with this golden thing in your hands. You put it in the office and then you just have to look at it sitting on the shelf. And, after about two weeks, you go: 'What is that doing there?'
I've played people that are on the line of evil and good, but that's life. We are always playing with the good and the bad. I see them as people. I don't see them as caricatures. I try to not make them caricatures. Maybe I fail, but I try to see what' behind them. Would I play the hero? A superhero? I don't think so. But, I play good guys. There are some there, but you have to look.
When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you're really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else.
But don't call me an actor. I'm just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don't say that what I am doing is art.
I retired from rugby because I was old and getting really slow.
The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award.
As an actor, you can't judge. A great actress from Spain said, "We, the actors, are lawyers of the characters we play. We have to defend them, no matter what."
Many people out there don't have a choice, in choosing their friends and the people they're being manipulated by.
Some quality performances and movies have a chance to be rewarded, but it's not like it's a bible.
We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was. But give me a break, it's only a movie.
I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.
Celebrity is very weird.
The earliest memories I have from my childhood are of my mum getting ready to go on stage. I must have been about five and I would watch her vomiting backstage on opening night, and then the next minute she became Isabella, the Queen of Spain. At the time I remember thinking, 'What kind of schizophrenic job is this?' Now it all makes sense.
I don't really care where movies come from as long as they're worth making.
There is no good side to celebrity.
I have this problem with violence. I've only done one movie in almost 20 years where I killed people. It's called Perdita Durango. It's a Spanish movie. I'm very proud of the movie, but I felt weird doing that.
In 22 years of acting, I've only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I'd give it back and say, 'Take this s**t out of my hands!' There were laughing, like they couldn't believe I was supposed to be the villain.
I live in Spain. Oscars are something that are on TV Sunday night. Basically, very late at night. You don't watch, you just read the news after who won or who lost.
I am always saying, 'I don't believe in God; I believe in Al Pacino.' And that's true. If I ever get a phone call saying 'Would you like to work with Al Pacino?' I would go crazy.
Bond is the longest-running franchise ever and there's a reason for that: they are action movies but they are also touched by current events without being political or too serious.
