'Motorcycle Diaries' had the best costumes - that battered jacket and those linen shirts. I wear linen shirts in real life, too, and I have a nice, simple number I got handed down. As a father, you just stop buying stuff for yourself. It's all for the kids.

A boxing workout is the heaviest thing, but it's the best. The worst part is that boxing gyms are the smelliest things in the universe. You have to lie down on the floor, where everyone has been sweating and spitting, and do 1,000 situps and push-ups.

It's very difficult to raise money, especially in the United States, for independent movies.

Life certainly points it out to you - 'you can go this way or the other way.' You have to decide and it's a very strong decision because, would you sleep well knowing that you're living in the best place, but you're letting the place where you should live alone?

Every decision that you make you have to be incredible congruent. It doesn't mean that you have to starve. If you need money, you do something that gives you money, that's normal.

I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job, like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.

I was brought up the Mexican way, where actors are paid very little and every part you take is an act of faith. If people respect that, then great.

My story about becoming an actor is a completely non-romantic one. I became an actor because my parents were actors, and it seemed like a very... I knew I was going to act all my life, but I didn't know that I was going to be a professional actor. I thought I was just going to work as an actor every now and then.

It is quite common to meet people that live a few kilometers away from Mexico and that have never been there. We need to revive on many levels an illustrious desire to get to know the world, to learn another language, to understand and create empathy with people that live a few kilometers away from us. It's never late to do this.

Mexican food is far more varied than people think. It changes like dialects. I was brought up in Jalisco by the sea on a basic diet - tomatoes, chillis, peppers of every size and rice, which is a Mexican staple. The Pacific coast has a huge array of seafood.

In Mexico we have a trick - add a crystal of salt to the kettle and the tea tastes better, almost English. But after four pots, your kettle's broken.

The whole Baja California peninsula is an energetic place, and it's incredibly alive.

You know, Motorcycle Diaries has no incredible stories, no sudden plot twists, it doesn't play that way. It's about recognizing that instance of change and embracing it.

We think that democracy can change a lot of things, but we're being fooled, because democracy is not the election. We've been taught that democracy is having elections. And it isn't. Elections are the most horrendous aspect of democracy. It's the most mundane, trivial, disappointing, dirty aspect.

If we do a little bit of insight into history, how many times have there been people doing hate discourse, blaming everything on a certain group of people. That really is the genesis of genocide, where it kind of sparks.

I've never cared for the idea of a career path, or where a film might 'take me.' My love is for acting not money, so I only take on roles that I find challenging, in stories I find interesting.

When it's good, cinema can be one of the most important things in a person's life. A film can be a catalyst for change. You witness this and it is an incredibly spiritual experience that I'd never lived before; well, maybe only in a football match.

In Latin America, you don't do things for the money because there is no money.

Doing films in Latin America is like an act of faith. I mean, you really have to believe in what you're doing because if not, you feel like it's a waste of time because you might as well be doing something that at least pays you the rent.

In Mexico you have death very close. That's true for all human beings because it's a part of life, but in Mexico, death can be found in many things.

Migration is as natural as breathing, as eating, as sleeping. It is part of life, part of nature. So we have to find a way of establishing a proper kind of scenario for modern migration to exist. And when I say 'we,' I mean the world. We need to find ways of making that migration not forced.

The biggest privilege I've had in my life is being able to make a choice. If you make a choice, it can't be a wrong choice because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I like having a good time. It's probably my mother's Brazilian genes in me - party, party.

I've never been too afraid of what other people have said, especially when I was younger, but I suppose that was the arrogance of youth.