My father never wanted me to be a writer. He didn't - he came to terms with it maybe two years before he died. He wanted me to be a weather girl because when I was growing up, there were very few Latinas on television, and in the early '70s when you first started seeing Latinas on TV, they would be the weather girls.

I've always read broadly: literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, chick lit, historical, dystopian, nonfiction, memoir. I've even read Westerns. I prefer female protagonists.

My father always defined my gender to my brothers. He'd say, 'This is your sister; you must take care of her.'

But I deal with this meditating and by understanding I've been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not to overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.

I don't want to be the front for somebody else's creativity and sell that day in, day out.

Music lives in cycles. One day, one type of music is on top and the next year another genre is on top. Either the fans love you or they jump from one artist to another.

I don't think that theater is the higher medium, that it's better than film.

The worst thing you can have as an actor is too big an ego. It just kills creativity.