Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It is necessary for me to express the deep sorrow that I feel for all the Cuban people both inside and outside of Cuba that have suffered the atrocities and repression caused by Fidel Castro and his totalitarian regime.
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.
I'm a fan of Ernest Hemingway work and specifically The Old Man and the Sea. I researched the relationship he had with the captain of his boat for 20 years, Gregorio Fuentes, and that inspired me to write a screenplay about it.
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.
I love to cook, and my wife loves to cook. Sometimes it's the appeal of the simplest of dishes - things you've grown up with in your life. Your emotional memory - something that not only affects your taste buds but that you've got an emotional attachment to.
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.
There's good movies and there's bad movies. The genres are never dead, it's just about how to apply them and articulate them and execute them - the story, the quality of the writing, the acting, the design elements, the directorial execution - all these things make it what it is.
A lot of things I try to instill in my children comes off of what I've learned from my parents. First of all, you have to lead by example. You can't say one thing and behave another way. Kids learn more from watching you in life than what you say to them. So I try to be the best example I can be to them.
I started in comedy when I first started as an actor on stage and doing improvisational theater and stuff like that. So a lot of people who know me know that sort of side of me. But I got the roles that I got as an young actor kind of steered me in a different direction, which were, at times, darker characters. And so comedy was not something that came easy for people to think of my in those terms.
I knew a gentleman that I had worked with over the years, who is no longer with us, and was a great influence in my life named Cachao - a Cuban musician, composer, arranger, and creator of the Mambo. The integrity of the journey is what's important - how you conduct yourself in the process. That's what Cachao was always about. He had great integrity, great dignity, was very humble, and dedicated to his art.
Cachao is obviously Cuban. He's known for traditional Cuban music and that's the music that I'm most passionate about. Cachao is one of the greatest innovators and visionaries. At the base of the tree, the roots, there is Cachao. So I was blessed to have had that time to learn from him and to give him an opportunity and a space where he can create. Everybody always wants to play with Cachao, because he's the guy.
Martell Cognac approached me to make a film for them that represented the spirit of John Martell and what he stood for as a person and as a visionary - the qualities that they felt were linked to the brand because of John Martell himself. The creation of the cognac had an impact on the world. That's what Martell Cognac would like to promote: people that can inspire other kids and generations. They have a saying: "It's not what you achieve, it's how you achieve it."