I like to look strong and commanding.

A child speaks more sense than an adult half of the time.

I'm more of a guy's girl. I like having a beer in a bar, and I don't bicker or sit down and do my nails.

When I act, a part of me goes into the character I am playing.

To be seen and to be respected for my work and acknowledged as a true American Latina... means a lot to me.

I'm Latin -- we start young, honey!

I have a hyper personality.

Trust me: Studios, investors, filmmakers, they will shift because they just follow the money trail.

Every character has their reasons -- even the characters who do dumb things.

Music is a very big participant in everything I do, from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed.

You have to be very committed and find happiness in the work that you do.

I do believe in us as actors and directors and writers and producers and also as movie-goers. We have much more power than we believe we have. Without our ticket, studios can't make traditional decisions.

Not to settle. If you're not happy with a person, leave. And wait until you find that one person who makes you feel good about yourself every single day and is not expecting you to change, but to grow.

I want to be in the small percentage of women who don't settle for conventional roles.

There are a lot of magazines that are still sort of... that only cater to a certain demographic and only put certain people on their covers.

The biggest obstacle I've had to overcome is being a woman in a man's world.

Fathers, sons, brothers, men everywhere: Your legacy will not perish if you take your partner's surname, or she keeps hers.

For me, it's very important if I do action movies and I have a stunt person, to work with them. Not only by memorizing the choreography but also it's important to study that individual and it's imperative for that individual to study you because you're not playing two different people, you're playing the same person.

In Caribbean there is no middle class: you're either rich or you're poor. And the ladder to success is not really a ladder, it's a chain; once you reach a certain level, you can't go back and you can only keep going forward.

I love wearing men's clothing and underwear.