I believe in characters that can be tangible, and that you can actually relate to.

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.

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

I open my eyes and my ears, and that’s why I work.

When I met Quentin [Tarantino], he told me what every actor wishes from any director. He said, "I've been through a Demián Bichir marathon. I've watched everything you've done." Most of the time, they don't even know what you've done.

I am defined also by Woody Allen’s films and Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch and Julian Schnabel or Almodóvar, or by Guillermo del Toro, Iñárritu, Cuarón. Even if we haven’t worked with them, we are all defined by their filmography.

If you think about portraying Americans, for example, in a Russian film, it all depends on where the American is from, if they went to school or not, and if they're well-educated or not. Is it an American from Texas, or an American from Brooklyn? Things would change with the vocabulary and the accent.