One of the first things that my English teacher told when I began studying in New York was, "You're here because if you pick it up from the street, not everyone speaks good English." And it happens all the time, anywhere. If you pick up Spanish from the streets, you're not going to be able to speak it correctly.

I was lucky that audiences in Mexico liked my work. I was even luckier when I got to do movies and plays with my brothers.

Cinema serves as a constant reminder to us of who we are and what we are made of.

I have tried to defend what is most precious to our American society, a society that is now at war against the forces of racial intolerance.A big part of me making the decision was how important the play is for the times that we live in. This is a classic. It's a masterpiece of American playwriting. It's about discrimination and it's about we Mexicans being a target for so many years.

One wants to think that - and this is really a stupid thought - that through your art or whatever you do as an actor you can actually affect someone else's lives and thoughts or whatever.

I wanted to give my actor a break. I wanted to live and to learn English. I wanted to be anything, a cabdriver, a busboy, anything to keep me away from acting for a while.

When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can.