I listen to and I play all kinds of music, and I'm interested in jazz and in bluegrass - I like it all - but Cuban music speaks to me in a certain way.

If you have the right actors and you can give them the freedom to explore, you've done a lot of your work as a director.

I'm not the type of person who goes through all this effort for a movie, and then doesn't care if anybody sees it. I want them to see it, and I want them to see it on the big screen.

You have to love the guy that you play, even if you play the villain, you've got to love him.

I don't control the movies that are offered to me, but I make choices based on certain parameters.

I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. I just want (the audience) to have an experience that moves them.

It is necessary for me to express the deep sorrow that I feel for all the Cuban people both inside and outside of Cuba that have suffered the atrocities and repression caused by Fidel Castro and his totalitarian regime.