No, obviously, the time goes by, the English gets better. Ever since I met Melanie, that was almost nine years ago now, you have to just speak the language continuously, hone every word. So, and the proof for me of that, was actually in theater. It has to be two hours and 45 minutes on the stage speaking a language that is not your language, and singing.

A couple of years after I arrived in Hollywood, everything that was Latino was fashionable, and years after, my thought is that we're not fashionable anymore. We're here to stay.

I discovered very soon, especially for movies, because I started in theater, that every director has his own universe. You have to be free enough to try to understand what he wants from you. Especially when that director has a tremendous personality. And I'm talking about people like Pedro Almodovar and Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen. And you have to adapt. If you don't adapt to them, you are off the thing.

I did my first movie, "The Mambo Kings," in America without speaking the language. I learned the lines phonetically. I had an interpreter actually just to understand directions from my director.

Movies serve many purposes, and I've visited many of those genres, from the most light, frivolous comedy that is just trying to make you laugh, to movies that explore the most complicated side of the human soul. As an actor, I play all of those things, and I still like it.

You have to work with people you really love.

I cry a lot, you know. Which is very difficult for a man to recognise, but I do. I cry in movies, you know, just watching movies.