My mother gave me one piece of advice that stuck with me. She said don't forget where you came from.

I'll talk about my Tony all day long.

When people call me a sex icon, it's flattering but it never goes to my head because I never felt sexy as a teenager.

Latinos have not historically been a culture that unites easily. We're very factioned - you have your Mexican Americans, your Puerto Ricans, your Cuban Americans, your Central Americans - and sometimes we focus on the differences more than the commonalities.

I believe that education offers the fastest route to economic mobility. I grew up with a family of strong, accomplished, and educated women. I believe, as they say, that you can't be what you don't see, and since I saw a lot of smart women in my life, education being at the center, I just mimicked that behavior. There was never a question that I'd go to college. In fact, I was the last person in my family to get a master's degree, so that tells you I'm actually the underachiever!

I am so secure in who I am. I really am! And I'm not conceited. I just think, 'Wow, okay, that's the life you want to live.' It wasn't about who he chose. I mean, I had moments, 'Am I not sexy enough? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not smart enough?' But in so many of those questions, I immediately stopped and said, 'No, don't start doing that.' Because you can get stuck in that cycle and you can carry on to other things.

I would say 80% of the scripts I get are dramas and not comedies or romantic comedies, which is funny because that's what I do every week.