I think life is short, and you can't spend time doing things just to be on set to reassure yourself that people are not going to forget about you.

I have a huge relationship with Brazil; it's almost a love affair, I would say. And to me, to introduce that specific martial art like capoeira in Hollywood movies was something important to me.

I have a tendency to think that that stereotype of American movies and Hollywood movies doesn't exist. Of course you have the studios that have a very hard policy upon their artists, but then I haven't really been doing any real Hollywood movie yet.

When you have a bunch of scripts that you have to read, the less you have, the better it is, because otherwise, everything is already planned and I think that's a terrible feeling.

It was like a dream to me to suddenly get into the market with that kind of movie, like La Haine. It actually created my identity as an actor, that thing.

And now I have a big house, nice clothes and I travel in first class and I love it, so maybe it's time to enjoy being a star.

La Haine - first of all, it was the story of friendship. I was very close with Mathieu Kassovitz; he was somebody I met in the nights of Paris. And the hip-hop scene and all that... You know, it was very much about doing our own thing, and some of the subject matter was so close to what we knew and the people we were hanging out with.