I explain that as Latinos, we can also be professionals.

I knew that [director/screenwriter] Catalina Aguilar Mastretta had an amazing take on the female psyche and the modern woman and the modern immigrant woman living in the U.S., and I really saw the need for a story told of our daily lives without being a statistic and without just trying to hit a demographic, and I felt that with this one.

Our society really needs to take a better look at what we're selling, because I think women being empowered will be as beneficial to men as it is to us.

People follow my movies for a reason, and that's because I believe in them, and I don't want to just make movies for the sake of making movies.

All the products that are sold to us - those anti-aging products - are telling us that there's a due date.

I told my friend - we were working on a movie together - and he gave me a script and asked me to give him notes. And they were all male characters, and I said, "You know what would make this character more interesting?" And he asked what - and it's this road trip between three guys, basically, one older man, one 30-year-old and a 13-year-old mechanic. And I said, "If you make the 13-year-old a girl, and you make her an Indian-American mechanic." And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Yeah, don't change anything in the script about him, and just make it a her."

I feel that the power that storytelling has to change people, to bring them together, to have that cathartic sort of experience, is something that definitely has helped my life be worthwhile and better.