For me, it's not about masochism to talk about death. For me, it's about observing life through death, from the last point of it.

How can [actors] learn their lines and be honest in front of 30 people and all the lights? It makes me cry sometimes. I can't understand how they can be joking with me 30 seconds before, and 40 seconds later they're giving me all this incredible feeling.

I just wanted to show the migrants as complex humans with flaws and weakness, with good and bad things, and show that they're parents and family men. I wanted to show them with everything, as they are.

All my films have always been released in the autumn, maybe because they're more melancholy to people.

I understand when there's no money for the arts in the government, but it should maybe pressure private companies to support more filmmakers. These exhibition and distribution companies are huge, and there might be incentives for them to invest more in Mexican cinema.

The way America sees Mexico, if they have any sense of it, is like Taco Bell. Our countries are neighbors, and the only hard food to get in America is true Mexican. It's impossible to find, even in L.A. Why is that?

I personally can't handle frivolous violence. I overreact to it.