Demian Bichir Quotes

We have a demon, we have an angel inside, within our souls, and you just play with it, and sometimes the evil part of you wins the battle, in a very important decision, or in a bedtime, with your lover. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

I don't believe in bad and good, I believe we are all a mix of both.

The real secret to guacamole is that you use exactly the elements that you need, which is cilantro, onion, tomato, and jalapenos. And, of course, avocado.

I wanted to give my actor a break. I wanted to live and to learn English. I wanted to be anything, a cabdriver, a busboy, anything to keep me away from acting for a while.

As an actor, you know when you've got great material in front of you. When you're working, you think, 'Is this the one? The one that everyone will respond to and be moved by?' You pray that you have told the story well... that your peers will see it and audiences will love it.

There's good and bad everywhere in any aspect in life. The only people who we can't really trust are politicians. Because those guys lie to everybody and constantly.

I grew up in the theater. I began my career at 3. That was the first time I stepped onto a provisional stage.

I have been in the business long enough to know what an intense amount of work it takes to operate a theater company.

I was lucky that audiences in Mexico liked my work. I was even luckier when I got to do movies and plays with my brothers.

One wants to think that - and this is really a stupid thought - that through your art or whatever you do as an actor you can actually affect someone else's lives and thoughts or whatever.

We all have that capacity, to be two things. And after all I was named for both the devil and the angel. Demonio y angel. Dem-y-an.

There are some actors that are so gifted, that move you in such a way that every time you see their names again, you go and pay another ticket because you want to have that experience again.

I left my parents' home when I was 22, I moved to New York with my ex-girlfriend. We did a film together with Raul Julia.

There is a film called 'A Separation.' If you see it playing, go see it. It's beautiful. It's so well written and the acting is amazing. It's one of those films that you would love to be a part of.

Lincoln' is a powerful film. It's one of those epic films that talk about this very specific issue in history of the United States.

I'm an old-fashioned guy.

As a young actor, I booked a movie in the U.S. I didn't speak any English at the time, so I learned my lines phonetically when I auditioned for it.

I believe in creative work.

Scarlett Johansson. I think people don't really realize how great of an actress that girl is. She's so beautiful and that distracts you from what she can do as an actor.

You don't need tons of money to create art. You do need tons of money to be a part of show business. They are two different things.

When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can.

When you do a film, all you want is to make the best film possible. You don't think about Oscars. But it's really flattering. Please, bring it on!

I don't hide or play stupid games.

My two brothers and I grew up in the theater, going everywhere with my parents when they performed.

The immigration issue is about the separation of families, and that is not human, in any country in the world, but especially in the United States. We should not root for a law that separates families.

When you have great scripts, everything is very easy and fun.

I try to be as clear as I can be.

When your show keeps coming back, year after year, you have a responsibility because your fans know your show sometimes better than you do. You can't play games with them. You have to be really focused and concentrated, and play at your best in every department. The writing staff has to be fantastic. Our director line-up has to be great. Everything has to be better and better. Your fans keep track of the details.

If you think about portraying Americans, for example, in a Russian film, it all depends on where the American is from, if they went to school or not, and if they're well-educated or not. Is it an American from Texas, or an American from Brooklyn? Things would change with the vocabulary and the accent.

When we talk about corruption, there's corruption on both sides of the border. That's what I think is interesting. I'm from Mexico, so when I see a Mexican portrayed in the American market on TV or films, you better do it right because you won't fool me. I'm sure no one really cares on this side of the border, if they get it right or not, but all the way from Mexico, to another 120 countries where the show goes, they will be able to tell the difference.

So, whenever you hear or see violence, there is violence on both sides of the border, or it's both country's responsibility. When we talk about trafficking with weapons, with human beings or with drugs, we talk about it on both sides of the border.

A lot of people love Tarantino’s films because they’re spectacular, they’re beautiful, they’re wonderful. He hires the best group of artists - not only actors, but everyone around: best photographers, best set designers, best production designers, costume designers. A lot of people love his films because they’re bloody, they’re gory, they’re savage. But very few people see that he’s a very political director.

One of my dreams is to become sufficiently famous that I can play this charity match that happens every year or two with celebrities at Old Trafford, at the house of Manchester United.

It's a really, really hard life when you don't have a document that actually gives you a name and a face.

I have tried to defend what is most precious to our American society, a society that is now at war against the forces of racial intolerance.A big part of me making the decision was how important the play is for the times that we live in. This is a classic. It's a masterpiece of American playwriting. It's about discrimination and it's about we Mexicans being a target for so many years.

I like playing human beings - I don't believe in good or bad. I don't believe in black and white. I believe in different tonalities. I believe in different layers of emotions and states of mind. I believe in characters that can be human.

People say that the brain is a muscle and that one of the best exercises for any brain is learning another language and to switch from one to another as much as you can. I've found out that when I have trouble regarding any character or any particular scene in English, sometimes I'll switch to Spanish and I'll solve the problem that I've encountered. If I'm working in Spanish and I don't know how to approach certain scenes or certain emotions, or how to say this and that, I just switch to English to try to solve it that way and it works.

I think it's very interesting how an American network chooses to tell this story. We don't name one country the good guy and the other country the bad guy. We talk about this co-responsibility that we share, in everything.

I am defined also by Woody Allen’s films and Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch and Julian Schnabel or Almodóvar, or by Guillermo del Toro, Iñárritu, Cuarón. Even if we haven’t worked with them, we are all defined by their filmography.

Don’t complicate whatever is not complicated.

A lot of the things that I’ve learned in the past have been from dear friends. Rodriguez’s favorite line is “Fácil!” Easy! He makes things easy. He doesn’t complicate his life. He’s obsessed with perfection, but he makes it easy, and that’s pretty much the way I work as an actor.

I open my eyes and my ears, and that’s why I work.

I’m an actor who’s accustomed to bringing a lot of stuff to the table, and you have to be ready because some of them will be accepted and some of them will be rejected. Then you need a generous, free, fearless, loving director like Tarantino to allow you to take those risks.

Can you imagine saying ‘Hi’ to Sam Jackson and he goes and gives you a hug? It’s like being hugged by a lion.

When I met Quentin [Tarantino], he told me what every actor wishes from any director. He said, "I've been through a Demián Bichir marathon. I've watched everything you've done." Most of the time, they don't even know what you've done.

We need to know the facts, in order to tell the politicians, "Excuse me, I don't want you to use my money on building a wall that is not going to solve any problems. We have to go this direction instead."

One of the first things that my English teacher told when I began studying in New York was, "You're here because if you pick it up from the street, not everyone speaks good English." And it happens all the time, anywhere. If you pick up Spanish from the streets, you're not going to be able to speak it correctly.

I believe in characters that can be tangible, and that you can actually relate to.

I hope people can stop believing everything politicians say about Mexico and the United States, and the problems that we share.

Cinema serves as a constant reminder to us of who we are and what we are made of.