When you know people are really at peace with who they are and what they do, they collaborate and want to help you to improve.

I think the most difficult love begins with one's self. How you treat yourself is something you bring to your relationships.

A part of being an actor is I people watch. I like to observe their behaviour, watch their reactions on the street and see how they talk to each other, and that's impossible when they are looking back at you. I used to enjoy taking the train and watching people in their own minds, struggling with themselves.

I've always said that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan.

When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you're really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else.

In 22 years of acting, I've only done two movies where I, personally, kill people. The Coens called me the Spanish Ballerina on (the No Country For Old Men) set, because every time I had the gun, when they called cut, I'd give it back and say, 'Take this s**t out of my hands!' There were laughing, like they couldn't believe I was supposed to be the villain.

I'm a huge fan of the director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and his work, and I knew he was going to be an amazing actor's director, based on the performances that I saw in his movies.