Yes it did really. It was very exciting to find that my energy could be directed into something more useful and positive. I was starting to get panicked. I was thinking 'what am I going to do with my life?' I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then I became crazily obsessed with acting. I suddenly had a work ethic and then everything changed completely for the better because I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

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

I like drama. I love being in a drama where I get to be the funny guy. That's what I really love the most.

Self-expression is something that you've crafted, something that you've found. You've practiced on that piano for hours, you didn't hang out with your buddies, you didn't go after the girls, you stayed in your own little geeky room or you wrote for hours.

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

After kids leave the house, they can decide to do whatever they want, but while they're under my roof, they're going to be lawyers or writers or something, something important, anything except actors.

But when you are doing an animated voice, it has to have more energy than usual or it falls flat and doesn't work. For myself, I found that I had to put myself in the same physical or emotional state as Sid, in order to make that voice sound alive and authentic. So if there was a scene in which he was running, I would be running beforehand to sound out of breath. That's important because the audience can tell intuitively if it does not sound real.