Relationships take time and energy, and your job kind of sucks that all out of you. It takes an extra effort to stay present in a relationship when you are working kind of hours.

How much time have I wasted on diets and what I look like? People are saying 'We love you and love what you do' and you're sitting there thinking 'I'm not skinny enough or pretty enough.' It's taken a lot of work to get over that.

What’s hard about being on the other side of the world is that sometimes the problem feels so big that changing one life doesn’t feel like enough. But it is.

Latino actors and actresses have had to struggle for decades, but when I came around with Real Women Have Curves, attitudes were starting to change. We screened the film all over the world - in Jewish communities, black communities, Greek communities, German communities - and people across the board said, "That's my family."

Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me.

I realized how Latina I was, and then also, at the same time, how not Latina enough I was, because I’m born and raised in Los Angeles. I speak Spanish, but I don’t speak perfect Spanish, not like a native speaker

I am trying to be guided by my passion.