For me, no ideological or political conviction would justify the sacrifice of a human life. For me, the value of life is absolute, with no concessions. It's not negotiable.
Edgar Ramirez
I've never lived in an English-speaking country, ever, but I lived in Austria. So, my second language is German. And when I went to school, I had a lot of classes in English.
Boxing is all about how cool and controlled and clear your mind is. Violence only gets in the way of you winning a fight. It's a sport that's more about the strategy than anything. You lose or you win in your head.
Feminism is nothing but equality, and actually, feminism benefits men because it liberates us and it releases us from many stigmas imposed by the macho culture on us as well. So if more of us could understand that it's nothing but equality, I think many agendas in terms of equality would have advanced quicker because it really helps us as well.
I'm very physical. I love to work out; I'm very athletic. It's a great therapy, not only for my body, but for my mind.
Boxing combines, in perfect proportion, strength, speed, and endurance. Normally, most sports are either about one of the three: either about speed or endurance or strength. Boxing combines all three of them. It's really intense.
Panama is a country that's been dealing with issues of identity since its very birth. It was born on Wall Street. It was born out of engineering construction. It was the canal. Because of the canal, the country was born, so the country has been divided into pro-canal and against-canal people for so long.
I met Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu years ago during my college days, and I was in charge of international promotion of this movie festival he was invited to as part of the jury, and then he saw my work on a short film that was directed by a friend of mine.
Everything goes in waves. Evolution goes in waves. The ocean goes in waves. Energy goes in waves. Sound travels in waves.
I belonged to the 'Point Break' generation - I watched the original when I was 13 years old. It's basically the story of the rescue of the human spirit, and we continue to fight that same spiritual battle, but with a political expression.
If my subject is alive and is willing to talk to me, I will do it. But I always try to find people who were close, like lovers and family members and work colleagues - because we are what we think we are, but we're also the perception that others have of us. The truth is a sphere. There's always a hidden face.
I'm restless. I'm all the time here and there and trying to get myself busy and creative. It's something that's part of my personality since I was a kid.
There's no way to reconstruct reality. It happened once. What you do is reinterpret and recreate. Even if you have the person who lived it and did it next to you, the event happened just once.
I'm definitely interested in exploring human contradictions. Contradictions are what make us human - it's what defines us as human beings. Contradictions are what make characters interesting, and I've been lucky to be presented with characters who have a lot of contradictions.
What drew me to the character is that Roberto Duran is the son of an American soldier - a Marine - stationed in Panama and a humble Panamanian mother, and he was abandoned.
Men are taught that if we are not the ultimate provider, we are a complete failure. We have to be number one in everything we do. There is nothing more delusional or paralysing than what I have just described.
You get to a new school, and you're the new guy, or you're the foreigner, or you're the guy with the funny accent. That first day at school was a whole new opportunity to create a new persona.
Who said that being Latino is to be a stereotype? Characters are stereotypes when making plans or without shades. I do not believe in the picture or model established in the movies.
I have a deep fascination with human nature, with all its virtues and all its defects.
The tale of 'Point Break' is about doing what you love and committing to what you love. It's relevant to me as a Venezuelan, to you as an American, to any Chinese person watching the film.
My father was military, so I traveled a lot, so I had 13 to 15 first days in new schools. Bullies transcend culture, unfortunately, and I had to deal with them wherever I went. I knew how to defend myself. But I didn't know how to fight.
War is a tragedy. It's not pretty, and in my opinion, there are no winners. Everybody's a victim, from the one who's suffering pain to the person inflicting it.
If you get conquered by ego, then you are losing the fight.
Carlos, on paper, and Carlos, the guy who was in jail, is known to be a cultivated guy, the guy who handles big amounts of information, and for me, that was very important.
Bolivar's legacy has always been a part of the Venezuelan/Latin American imagery, especially in the countries that he liberated or he helped to liberate. He's been a very prominent figure.
I had to understand the whole bounty hunting thing, because we don't have that in Venezuela. Nothing similar at all, at least not legal.
I think, for an actor, the whole world is a place of work because if you focus on characters and on stories, they are everywhere, so yeah, I feel very privileged to have had this great opportunities in the international cinema and especially in the American cinema.
One of the pillars of 'Cyrano' is recreating a love story and, like any archetype, these great stories tend to be captivating, among other things, because they are made of those universal things that move us.
I believe in the will. I believe in discipline. I believe in the organization. I believe in the rigor that gives us work. I believe in love as an engine of all things. I believe in the light. I believe in God. I believe in kindness.
I think that, in the end, the military behavior and intelligence services are not very different from each other. It's an attitude of hunters; they're observing the prey.
We all have very personal relationships to what happened on 9/11 and the events after tracking Osama bin Laden. Nobody can escape from the influence of that.
My father was a military attache, so I've been traveling all my life.
I come from Venezuela, from the independent film arena, and you work with one camera.
I'm acting for the same reasons I wanted to become a diplomat. I've thought about it a lot and concluded that I wanted to become a diplomat because it was a way to explore human nature. For the same reason that at one point in college, I wanted to be a sociologist.
I majored in political communications, so I intended to be a diplomat.
I think there's no creative process that goes without injuries and scratches and punches. You get beat up somehow, and that's part of the commitment. You have to be open to that.
In order to understand the mindset of a boxer, I needed to become a boxer myself.
Panamanian boxing is unique - it's very musical. It's almost like a dance. It has a lot to do with being in the Caribbean and with salsa. When you see a Panamanian boxer, there's a style. There's a playfulness in the way you throw the punches.
To portray not only a boxer but a boxer like Roberto Duran, I needed to understand all the difficulties and the pressures of the sport itself.
Duran is a mythological figure in Latin America. He grew up in a time of turbulence because Panama was basically occupied by the United States. So he felt obliged to fight Americans in the ring. He felt the whole pride of his country and the need for cultural and political emancipation in his hands.
I'm not an aggressive person at all. But I know how to fight.
I remember I would always joke among my friends about a remake of 'Point Break'. I would say, 'You know what? Whenever there's a remake of 'Point Break', I'm going to do it.'
I remember when I first met Katherine Bigelow for 'Zero Dark Thirty' - actually, we met for another movie, and that never got made, and then she called me and invited me to 'Zero Dark Thirty'.
In boxing, there are no bad guys or good guys. Just people trying to make a living and trying to live up to their pride and to try to become someone.
Boxing, in the most general terms, is a poor man's sport. All you have is your hands to make a living.
We use the term 'fight' very lightly - 'I've been fighting so hard to get my car, I've been fighting so hard to get that job, I've been fighting so hard to get that girl.' But the reality is boxers do fight bitterly to get whatever they want or whatever they need in life, and most of them come from nothing, which is the case of Roberto Duran.
For me, it was very important to be part of a boxing film that actually explores the psychological aspects of the sport, more than just the physical aspects. I haven't seen boxing movies very often that really go so deep into the minds of the boxers. It really puts out how much it is about strategy and tactics and technique.
It's been a teenage fantasy of mine to play Bodhi.
Imagine stepping into the shoes of Roberto Duran, one of the most legendary boxers in the history of the sport, and definitely the most legendary Latin American boxer, and then having 'Raging Bull' in my corner. I mean, imagine that? Just having Robert De Niro to play the trainer in the movie, that was fantastic.
Whenever someone comes up to me saying, 'I saw you in 'Carlos' and then I saw the rest of your movies,' for me, it's an expression that we might be doing something well. So my life hasn't changed that much. I just try not to go to very crowded places if I'm not in the mood.
