Being a mother is more exhausting than working, and sometimes I push myself too hard and burn myself out. I can appreciate how exhausting it must be for women who have to do everything themselves all the time.

My mother was devoted to helping people - with my father's money! - who had great voices but didn't have the financial means to study music. He and my mum gave away dozens of music scholarships, and my mum opened a school in town, introduced opera to children and created fantastic programmes.

I think if you are young and you have children, you still have so much to prove. When you have children later in life, you lose a bit of that urge for working.

Imagine if I'd said, 'I have to be the best actress - I want that and nothing else.' I never would have directed. I never would have produced. I never would have done a beauty line. I would have just worried about getting a job or been frustrated that I wasn't getting the job that I wanted. I was ready to be a businesswoman.

I have tried my whole life to represent my Mexican roots with honor and pride.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.

Everybody has a weakness. Mine is food.