If you can find a way that your principles are actually the strategically smartest thing to do, you've kind of figured it out.
I really just like characters who you don't know where they stand for a long while. It's like people. You hang out with them for 10 years, and then all of a sudden they do something, and you say, 'Who are you?' That's more interesting. In life and on-screen.
Getting a record deal is a meaningless thing now.
I've never been interested in celebrity.
I come from a place where everything about me, even my body language, is saying: I mean you no harm. I smile, I laugh. Basic stuff for most people.
I think that's why often people in creative fields can feel so alone is because there's a constant third eye, that constant watcher.
I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie.
Our morality is based on so many factors: of where we were born, who we were born to, what values were instilled in us, what values we chose, the way that our lives have shaped us. That dictates so much of what we assume is our morality, and also the culture, all of these things.
I like films that take their time a little bit more and don't show you all of their cards right away, characters that are conflicted and contradicting and seem one way at first and then suddenly turn out to be something else.
Most actors, if you ask them if they play guitar, they'll say they played guitar for 20 years, but what they really mean is they've owned a guitar for 20 years.
I've always liked acoustic blues. I liked Bob Dylan a lot.
I grow up in the States, in Miami, but I was born in Guatemala, and my father's Cuban, and in 'Body of Lies,' I played an Iraqi.
When I'm creating a character, I don't see it so much as playing someone else as just playing a specific part of myself under certain circumstances.
I was in bands, but they were punk bands, and you plug in the guitars, you turn them up really loud, you've got four or five other people on stage with you, you've got some protection from when they throw lighters. You can always hide behind the lead singer or the bass player.
I had a great conversation with Tom Waits, of all people.
I think that when you decide to dedicate yourself to creative endeavors and surround yourself with people who are creative, you very quickly learn how hard it is to survive doing those kinds of things, not to mention make a living at them.
I don't know if they were all functioning, but I did play in a bunch of bands.
I guess 'Scarface' was the Cuban Al Pacino.
I grew up in a very devoutly Christian home.
I played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college.
