There's nothing better than being in a film that translates to audiences and makes people think and feel good and walk away with great revelations in their own life of some kind. But when the process and the experience and the fun of that matches, it's a good feeling.

I like to make films, but the only reason I do is because I'm a very bad musician.

I remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country.

All people know that they will die, but they don't actually believe it.

Every time that I'm challenged with a film I think that I haven't learned anything, that every film is different and that every thing that I have learned is useless in this new adventure.

I made commercials for corporations like Volkswagen and Coca-Cola, but I was always the one to write them, too, which was a very good exercise, because I learned to tell little stories.

I saw what I could [in Mexico City], but we rarely got anything other than big, mainstream American films.