Self-expression, to me, is something that you worked on, that you have mastered a skill to say something in the most artful way that you can. It's not just blurting stuff out and having verbal diarrhea.

So many people, my friends and family, were all saying, "You're so funny. Why don't you become a comedian or an actor?" But it wasn't a reality at the time, it wasn't a road that Latin people were accepted in.

I had to get the voice back, the precise pitch of Sid's voice and I'd forgotten that I'd pitched him higher than my regular voice, so that was a little difficult to begin with. It was especially hard because we started recording in the morning so I had to warm up a lot and my usual voice is a little more gravelly.

Teachers are everything. I mean, you're a poor kid from the ghetto, your parents are busy working 24/7, working like a Mexican.

It might have been really cool back in the '50s when it was less populated but I don't know.

I grew up with a lot of cats like that and they always were so surprising, magnetic, and electrifying. You can't be with them too long because they burn you out but the energy, the impulsivity, and the freedom connecting them to their animal energy is just so powerful to watch. It's dangerous to live like that but it's riveting to watch.

Sid [the character from 'Ice Age'] is a prehistoric sloth. Sloths move really slowly and they store food in the cheek pouches. That's where I got the voice that you hear. He had to sound as though he was storing food.