Gael Garcia Bernal Quotes

I want to do work, but I also want to have a good time.

Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.

Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols.

I believe fervently in the nature, in truth and imagination, I believe in the blood, in life, words, and motivations.

Every decision that you make you have to be incredible congruent. It doesn't mean that you have to starve. If you need money, you do something that gives you money, that's normal.

Bringing a baby into the world is not like grilling enchiladas. It's a difficult thing.

We think that democracy can change a lot of things, but we're being fooled, because democracy is not the election. We've been taught that democracy is having elections. And it isn't. Elections are the most horrendous aspect of democracy. It's the most mundane, trivial, disappointing, dirty aspect.

I always wanted to act, but I never thought it would be my profession. I thought that I'd end up doing other things, but that in the meantime I'd do plays.

Alexander Gonzalez Inarritu is a great director. He's the one I first worked with. He's amazing.

Doing films in Latin America is like an act of faith. I mean, you really have to believe in what you're doing because if not, you feel like it's a waste of time because you might as well be doing something that at least pays you the rent.

I love rehearsals and I love creating a character, sticking with it until you have something to tell. It's always different though. Sometimes a director will tell you from day one what they want. Then you throw in your idea.

It's very difficult to raise money, especially in the United States, for independent movies.

It's not easy to act, but to direct to act. It goes form one place to the next. It's not heading for the punchline, and also it's not about scoring goals. It's about passing the ball, and the goals will come by themselves.

Shamefully, Mexico isn't a country that provides opportunities equally and democratically to everyone. Although there is a myth as well about that, because if you have something to tell, you will find a way to do it. You might get frustrated doing it but hey, that's the country we live in. I want the chance to live and experience the country that I come from. I keep struggling and fighting against these very seductive offers that require that I live somewhere else. It is a shame that it has to be like that. But you are young. If you don't have a family then there's no excuse. Try, at least.

I asked the producers when I was doing 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' if they could give me a VHS recording of the film that I could show to my family, because in Mexico and Latin America, when you do a film, you don't expect anybody to see it, especially not in the cinema.

In terms of work, obviously acting is such a job that is very in the flesh kind of thing. It's your work, but it's your life, in a way. You can get so mixed up.

I think the water dictates how food will taste in a country. In England the apples taste unlike apples grown in any other place. England is an island, there's a lot of salt in the air and in the water. I think that has something to do with it.

I always laugh a lot when I see the dramas that I end up doing. I see myself behaving very seriously and I'm like, 'What is this?'

We have a documentary film festival in Mexico. It's really original. It's called Ambulante, and it's a film festival that travels around several cities in Mexico.

In Mexico we have a trick - add a crystal of salt to the kettle and the tea tastes better, almost English. But after four pots, your kettle's broken.

I think since I was in drama school, I wanted to direct in the theatre. When you are an actor, you just have to open your eyes and you start to learn a lot about how to survive on set and what's important and how to tell a story. Directing is really about putting yourself out there, to be slapped in a way. You know that in the kitchen, you're gonna get burned. It's very scary but very exciting as well. If you have something to say, you have nothing to lose and you probably learn from the experience.

It is quite common to meet people that live a few kilometers away from Mexico and that have never been there.

To be absolved, especially if you commit a crime, there is no absolution, you must pay. But for forgiveness, with God or nature, you have to accept what you've done.

When confronted with a clear definition of what it is to be Mexican, we encounter ourselves in a never ending allegory of mixes and chaos.

Recently I've been doing risottos. Some of them have been amazing. Some of them, not all of them.

Life certainly points it out to you - 'you can go this way or the other way.' You have to decide and it's a very strong decision because, would you sleep well knowing that you're living in the best place, but you're letting the place where you should live alone?

When it's good, cinema can be one of the most important things in a person's life. A film can be a catalyst for change. You witness this and it is an incredibly spiritual experience that I'd never lived before; well, maybe only in a football match.

In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America.

I go with the flow. Whatever music you play for me, I'll dance.

Talking about food is like talking about your dreams. Everyone has something to say. We all have to eat, it's just what we eat which differs. Some people eat for fuel and I feel bad for them.

Mexican food is far more varied than people think. It changes like dialects. I was brought up in Jalisco by the sea on a basic diet - tomatoes, chillis, peppers of every size and rice, which is a Mexican staple. The Pacific coast has a huge array of seafood.

In Latin America, you don't do things for the money because there is no money.

We all have a cross-gender character: Every woman has a man that they can play, and every man has a woman that they can play.

You know, Motorcycle Diaries has no incredible stories, no sudden plot twists, it doesn't play that way. It's about recognizing that instance of change and embracing it.

I was brought up the Mexican way, where actors are paid very little and every part you take is an act of faith. If people respect that, then great.

A love relationship has always been shaped by the context and times we live in.

Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it.

A person isn't born with the intelligence to be with someone especial, you learn it, and you fail in the path of life, but you don't have to give up the chance to love.

It's difficult to act in a language that's not your own. It takes a long time to put your head around it and feel confident with it.

The collective experience of watching a great film together in a room is a transcendent moment that will never die.

In Mexico you have death very close. That's true for all human beings because it's a part of life, but in Mexico, death can be found in many things.

I was pretty excited to meet Cate Blanchett. She's great, she's amazing, I think she's one of the most beautiful women in the universe. And I mean the universe, not the world.

I didn't know I wanted to do films until I started to do them. Very few films are made in Mexico and film-making belonged to a very specific group, a clique.

I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job, like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.

Texas is a country in its own. It's made up of half Mexico/half United States but completed mixed. I don't mean to draw a generalization but it is a place, a territory, that's really made up of all these encounters, you know?

In a comedy, after the day is done, you can figure out ways of how to make it even funnier for the next day. In dramas, it's very different - the mindset that you're in.

My love is for acting not money, so I only take on roles that I find challenging, in stories I find interesting.

I was asked to go to Cannes to present Amores Perros. And little did I know that this film would be huge. I saw it for the first time in Cannes, and it was the first time I'd seen myself on such a big screen. And it had a huge impact on me - it was the strangest feeling.