In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform.

Now, I am perfectly willing to just enjoy my career by choosing roles simply because I consider them to be a challenge and doing the best possible job I can.

My gratification in working comes from the preparation and the building of the character.

How do you project a character if you don't have a sense of where she is from? I've always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces.

We weren't your mainstream '50s family. Both my parents had wonderful, eccentric, artistic friends who treated us as friends as well. How your mind worked was considered important.

I'm very comfortable, of course, just with my family.

I was born in 1976. I grew up in a traditional Mexican family. As a child, I had a pretty normal life: I would go to school, play with my friends and cousins. But then my father became President of Mexico, and my life changed.

The day I turned 16, I moved into my own flat. My parents had just broken up, and I didn't want to go back to Ireland with my mother. I was doing my A-levels, and my friends would come over and watch 'Twin Peaks.'