I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.

There has never been a female director who has won an Oscar. There has only been one woman who won at the Cannes Film Festival.

I noticed in the past, a lot of guys who like strong women, they really freak out if you're not strong 24/7. Or they complain about you being strong, then the moment you're not strong, they're like, 'Oh, no, no, no.'

When I first came to Hollywood I was told to go out with an agent because it was good for my career. So I went to a party with him because it was good for my 'career.' Well, he thought the whole thing was a big date. Needless to say, I was very upset.

I always knew from books and shows that the lives of circus artists are not easy, but spending time and learning from them made me realise the amount of effort they put in and how they constantly jostle between life and death.

Yoga has been the best tool for managing stress and life's challenges. Everything from my studies to my father's death was eased by my practice of it.

Making music on TV used to be as common as commercials. In the '60s and '70s, prime time was stuffed with variety shows headlined by such major and treasured talents as Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, the Smothers Brothers and Richard Pryor, who had a very brief comedy-variety hour on NBC that was censored literally to death.

Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life.