Self-expression, to me, is something that you worked on, that you have mastered a skill to say something in the most artful way that you can. It's not just blurting stuff out and having verbal diarrhea.
Teachers are everything. I mean, you're a poor kid from the ghetto, your parents are busy working 24/7, working like a Mexican.
Most of the great directors I've worked with - De Palma, Spike Lee - like rehearsals.
t is for me because I needed to do this. I really think actors shouldn't act unless they really need it in their lives. I think it has to be something that is so much a part of your chemistry, such a passion, that you can't live without it. You should not do it just because you are seeking fame or want to get rich.
That's the happiest I am, when I'm doing great work.
Voices come to me but to maintain them is hard work. They go away just as easily, so I have to remember them and that takes work. With Sid, I needed to make sure you could understand what he is saying, his enunciation. Sometimes I couldn't even say my own name [his name] in his voice. It sounds like 'Shid', it sounds a bit like he has a lisp.
I love his [Brad Furman] ferocious desire for perfection and his love of vitality, it feeds me, man. It feeds him and it feeds the whole crew. And he's got huge respect for talent. And that's why talent goes in and gives it 300% percent.
But when you are doing an animated voice, it has to have more energy than usual or it falls flat and doesn't work. For myself, I found that I had to put myself in the same physical or emotional state as Sid, in order to make that voice sound alive and authentic. So if there was a scene in which he was running, I would be running beforehand to sound out of breath. That's important because the audience can tell intuitively if it does not sound real.
I had to work with Ben Mendelsohn who's one of the great actors of our time. I had a lot of scenes with him and I was thrilled to be on the set with him; I just wanted to see how we were going to play it.
At Murry Bergtraum High I wanted to be as different from my father as possible. So I acted out in school, I was very anti-authority.
I see the new Latin artist as a pioneer, opening up doors for others to follow. And when they don't open, we crowbar our way in.
After kids leave the house, they can decide to do whatever they want, but while they're under my roof, they're going to be lawyers or writers or something, something important, anything except actors.
My mom [comes] to see my shows because she's so proud, but I'm talking about losing my virginity, my ex-wife and our sexual problems, and she's sitting in the front row smiling. I just go, "Mom, you can't sit in the front row, you can't smile. You have to go way in the back and dress in black. If I see you it's like you're breaking in when I'm having sex with my wife. It's just wrong."
Pablo Escobar is one of the great stories of all time. It's a bizarre, dark version of success.
So many people, my friends and family, were all saying, "You're so funny. Why don't you become a comedian or an actor?" But it wasn't a reality at the time, it wasn't a road that Latin people were accepted in.
I had to get the voice back, the precise pitch of Sid's voice and I'd forgotten that I'd pitched him higher than my regular voice, so that was a little difficult to begin with. It was especially hard because we started recording in the morning so I had to warm up a lot and my usual voice is a little more gravelly.
It's not quite the same as other kinds of performing, but I love animation. It is just a different kind of experience. The difference is that making a live action movie you are using your whole body.
I did Brad's first film The Take and I'm glad Brad [Furman] has not calmed down. I don't want him to ever calm down.
Definitely if you're an athlete, you're gonna be having all the baseball fame you can have. That's the great thing about baseball and sports. You can measure ability.
I was just school class clown and that was it. Someday I'll get a job as a cab driver or whatever.
I grew up with a lot of cats like that and they always were so surprising, magnetic, and electrifying. You can't be with them too long because they burn you out but the energy, the impulsivity, and the freedom connecting them to their animal energy is just so powerful to watch. It's dangerous to live like that but it's riveting to watch.
In Moulin Rouge I could not change the name of Toulouse-Lautrec obviously to Toulouse-Lautrec- Martinez. But in ER I did that, my name is Dr Victor Clemente, so sometimes it is possible.
It doesn't make sense. [Republicans are] not for us. You're not for my values. We're working class people mostly and blue collar. We're your cops, we're your firemen, we're your carpenters and the things we need - we need to protect our unions, we need to protect our Medicare, we need to protect the working class person.
I did the bible as told through Hispanic people and they laughed and applauded. I thought, "Oh my god, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."
It was at a performance art space that's no longer around, Gusto House... All of these great performers from all over the country lived on the Lower East Side, and they would take somebody's living room that opened right onto the street, open the door and charge tickets and put up chairs.
