To be able to explore the genre of the musical is nice. It was great to be able to sing professionally, for the first time, and dance, which was something that I did growing up, but I had not done for many, many years.

My ambition is to be happy.

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.

[Winning an Oscar] was a beautiful thing that happened. It is in my house, and every time I look at, I see all the people who are a part of it, all the people who gave me opportunities to work, gave me opportunities to make a living at this thing [acting] that was a dream for me, growing up. And I got to do it, and then again and again and again, and make a living out of being an actress.

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."

To be able to explore the genre of the musical is nice. It was great to be able to sing professionally, for the first time, and dance, which was something that I did growing up, but I had not done for many, many years.

I'm strong and opinionated. Those qualities brought me a lot of problems since I was a little girl in school, saying 'I don't agree' and fighting with the children. It's part of my curiosity for life.