I came to Los Angeles for the first time in 1994. I spoke no English. I only knew how to say two sentences: "How are you?" and "I want to work with Johnny Depp."

You cannot live your life looking at yourself from someone else's point of view.

Sometimes, when things go well on a set, or when you are working with somebody like Pedro Almodovar, Woody Allen, Rob Marshall or somebody so talented and so inspiring, it's really beautiful, what happens there.

I really think insecurity is something that comes with being an actor - I don't know actors who aren't insecure. I do think I kind of lie to myself - there is a percentage of ego involved. And I don't say that's a bad thing - it's good to know that it's there whether we like it or not. But ego is like a lion that we have to keep under control.

I won't go to places where you're going to find more attention. I go to the opposite.

Pedro Almodóvar asked me to watch italian films again as homework to look at the energy of all those women from the Italian neo-realist films. A lot of them had those characters that represented motherhood. For some reason, in the '50s in Italy, the mother figure was very important - and my character needed to have that energy.

There is a magic factor that is sometimes on a movie set, that is a really, really beautiful thing that cannot be compared to anything else, if you are somebody that is really passionate about acting or directing or the world of movies.