I was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, in 1917, May the 28th. So you can figure that out; that's a long ways off. Oh, I've been around a long time.
The only road to doing good shows, is doing bad shows.
Here's how my brain works: It's stupidity, followed by self-hatred, and then further analysis.
I was raised by a hard-working single mother, so my first role model was a woman. My only caretaker was a woman, and I have three sisters, so my community was girls. I have two girls, and my dog is a girl. My dead dog was a girl. I don't know. I guess I've always keyed in on that perspective.
I used to like people more, but now I have children and that changes your life in a lot of ways. Like you spend time with people you never would have chosen to spend time with, not in a million years. I spend whole days with people, I'm like, "I never would have hung out with you. I didn't choose you. Our children chose each other based on no criteria by the way. They're the same size. They don't care who they make me hang out with. "
If you're a woman and a guy's ever said anything romantic to you, he just left off the second part that would have made you sick if you could have heard it.
Race doesn't mean what it used to in America anymore. It just doesn't. Obama's black, but he's not black the way people used to define that. Is black your experience or the color of your skin? My experience is as a Mexican immigrant, more so than someone like George Lopez. He's from California. But he'll be treated as an immigrant. I am an outsider. My abuelita, my grandmother, didn't speak English. My whole family on my dad's side is in Mexico. I won't ever be called that or treated that way, but it was my experience.
Alejandro Amenábar has a unique way of approaching movies and thinking about something which was new to me. It was different. I have a lot of respect for him so I just took a gamble.
Whether it's a steroid conversation, or a player who gets into trouble, whatever it may be. Because of that, it makes you wonder what you can do if you had a little more space. That's the fun of the show for me - I have an hour worth of space.
'Sparkle' fell into my lap. I had heard a little bit about it, that it was being redone in early 2011. I was just kind of like, 'Oh, that would be really cool,' and not really thinking too much about it, and then it came through my agency. I read it, I fell in love with the script and I went in to audition.
I once jokingly told someone that every book is like a relationship. They're four or five years long - that's not so bad. They're serious. They demand a lot of attention. But I remember thinking that I wanted to have one with someone who's not so crazy and peculiar and demanding.