Andy Garcia

I'm an exile. My father had the courage to leave with his wife, his mother and three children under twelve. It took more courage to leave, to sacrifice everything for freedom, than to stay.

I am a traditional man. I'm a product of a traditional man. He sacrificed everything for his family.

I don't think lying has any ultimate justification. I don't think it ever leads to anything positive. The good fight to have is not to lie. That's one of the challenges in a way.

The reality is that the work I do is not private work. I bring all my secrets, my life, to my work. Anybody who's seen my work knows everything about me.

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.

Children make you a better everything. Daughters open up a whole different sensibility to you. When you have children, it focuses you on them as opposed to on yourself.

Every family is dysfunctional.

It's impossible for everybody to be in sync, even the most proper family.

Children need parameters, know what's right or wrong.

I'm not the type of person who goes through all this effort for a movie, and then doesn't care if anybody sees it. I want them to see it, and I want them to see it on the big screen.

If you have the right actors and you can give them the freedom to explore, you've done a lot of your work as a director.

It's better not to work than to work in something you don't want to be working in.