I listen to and I play all kinds of music, and I’m interested in jazz and in bluegrass – I like it all – but Cuban music speaks to me in a certain way.
My first interest was always music, and somehow that channelled itself into films and acting. I don’t know what the natural transition of it was. I mean I acted a little bit when I was young and like any kid would in a community theatre.
A man should have a right to be religious if he wants to. The government should not be involved in those decisions.
I go where I’m stimulated. If I’m stimulated, I show up. As Mick Jagger sings: It’s my life and I’ll do what I want.
The size of budgets does not alter my decision if I should do it. If there’s a movie with a budget of only $1 million that I find interesting, then I’ll sign up, but it has to be in the hands of a director who can do something with it. Ultimately, it’s a director’s medium.
It depends. When it’s the right scenario, it’s just as stimulating and just as exciting for me. It’s just a question of finding a piece of material that lights a fire under you.
I’m not the type of person who goes through all this effort for a movie, and then doesn’t care if anybody sees it. I want them to see it, and I want them to see it on the big screen.
My son loves my carbonara. I’ve tried to master that recipe – it’s very simple but very delicate. Once prepared it must be eaten quickly.
Children make you a better everything. Daughters open up a whole different sensibility to you. When you have children, it focuses you on them as opposed to on yourself.
I don’t control the movies that are offered to me, but I make choices based on certain parameters.
Pictures make a lot of money doesn’t determine whether the experience was...
Becoming a producer enables you to empower yourself, to make the film that you want to make. I have desires to make movies – I have movies I’m developing, and things that I’m interested in.
I think if the movie has resonance and stimulates the viewer to talk about it, you can have as large an audience as you want. The most important thing for me is that the movie exists. And that’s success enough already.
I think good chemistry starts with mutual respect.
Movies are very hard to make, to get it all to come together. So many people have their say in what the end product of films are.
It’s better not to work than to work in something you don’t want to be working in.
Everything I do in my life is very instinctual and in the moment. If I’m attracted to something, that’s it. If I have reservations, those don’t change till they’re resolved. My first impression is how I go.
My grandfather was a very elegant individual. My father also. He was a lawyer and farmer in Cuba. In Miami, he had to go to work wherever he could. But whenever it was time to go out, you saw how they cared for how they looked.
My uncle, who was a little more flamboyant, always said the guy who dressed the best was Fred Astaire.
They say a lot of women would like to see me naked, but there’s not a lens long enough for that.
I’m a staunch anti-Castro individual.