I took a year and a half off, when my kid was born, because I didn't want to be one of those dads where the kid doesn't know who his dad is.

In the beginning, I was always playing some kind of gangbanger and the token Mexican dude who didn't have a lot of lines but was in the entire movie. At the same time, everyone gets typecast, and I decided that if I was going to play a stereotypical role, I was going to play it like a three-dimensional character.

I think writing is the most underrated thing in Hollywood.

Eddie Murphy is just so off-the-cuff and can make anything funny. You hope that someday you'll acquire that skill, but maybe you're born with that.

I lived in Chicago, in a shady part of town, and the cops would always stop me since I'm Mexican and I look like the other dudes. Style played a part in it. You're not really going to dress in a suit in a tie.

There is always pressure in any movie set. If you think about it, there is something that you memorize and it is almost like public speaking every day, all day. There is a crew of people, there are monitors and if you mess up, you have to do it until you get it right and then sometimes, you would go blank.

I'm clearly not a writer, but I'm always a fan of them.