My goal as an actor has always been to reach a level where I can find a lot of interesting work, and I think I`m at that point now. The Oscar has given me a lot of recognition.

I see The Usual Suspects (1995) as the time where I was, quote unquote, discovered. It took me six, seven years to get to that place. And it was not easy. You`re fighting with people who doubt you and your choice of career. There are a lot of doubts - and you have to stay focused with what you want. I never put a time limit on me being successful or not. I just cared about the work as an actor. But it wasn`t easy because there were a lot of ups and downs. I don`t know if you know much about baseball, but baseball is the game of failure. You deal with failure - strike, strike, strike - all the time. Acting is like that. You have to have a very thick skin in a way - your hair is too dark, you`re too ugly for the part, your audition wasn`t good.

There`s a lot of Latinos right now, a lot of filmmakers and writers that are Latin too.

I`m not Jack Nicholson. I`m not Brando. But I do mumble.

To be honest with you, I`d rather not be working. When you work, there are all sorts of deadlines and pressures. I like to do one thing and take my time to do the other one.

Hopefully, I can play both sides of the fence. That`s probably what winning the Oscar gives me, the chance to do something with a studio and do other things that I really want to do.

I`ve liked most of the films that I`ve been in and those are the kinds of films I like to see.

When some people get parts, they feel they can now relax, but for me it was always the opposite. Sometimes before I do a movie or before I act out a scene, I may not sleep well the night before. If I don`t know what the scene is about, I might get all worked up.

I don`t think I could be a foot soldier. I don`t know if I could take orders too good. I`m a little lazy.

There are a lot of good actresses out there.

My career went into the hole after Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). People might have seen what they saw on screen and subconsciously, people in the business might have taken what they saw literally. I think people thought, `He got fat. He got weird. His mumbling increased tenfold.` I was trying to do an interpretation of a masterpiece of a book, and that`s what the character was - an animal!

It`s funny, but when I arrived in California to start college I was much more interested in becoming a surfer and cruise along in life from one beach to the next. I didn`t plan out any huge career for myself. Now that I see that I have this career and it`s worked out for me, it still feels like I`m surfing, only that it`s on a different level. I feel very free and that`s all that I`ve ever wanted out of life.

I listen to all types of music. I have been in Memphis recently, so I`ve been listening to some blues like Muddy Waters, and some early Elvis.

I like to take things very slowly. When you start to become a movie star it`s easy to believe that you are Superman. That can fool you. That`s why I prefer not to pay much attention to fame. The truth is that I don`t give it much thought. I don`t suffer. I don`t hang my photographs on the wall. Without realizing it, you can enter a vicious circle and think that you really are a superhero. That`s the moment when you get yourself in real trouble.

You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island I would need that to survive.

I trained as a theater actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.

My goal as an actor has always been to reach a level where I can find a lot of interesting work, and I think I`m at that point now. The Oscar has given me a lot of recognition, but I think Traffic (2000) alone would have done a lot for me. It`s the kind of role you die for because a lot of people are going to focus on your work. It gives you a very high profile.

"I used to play basketball and I was pretty competitive, but I was never a bad loser. I never got angry. For me it was always about doing my best and devoting myself to a challenge. Sometimes that will cut it, other times it won`t. But I`m someone who remains faithful to my dreams. That`s how I looked at acting, even though I knew it would be tough going at first. I didn`t think about the money, I`ve always lived simply. I just need my books and I can get by."

"I do get more recognized now. If I go to dinner, people look at me more now and whisper. But as an actor I would be no one without the people who come and see me. So it would be ridiculous for it to bother me. It just bothers me when I`m intoxicated."

"I`d like to do completely different roles - a romantic lead, for example. I`d like to be dressed up in a suit and get the girl at the end of the movie."

"I like to keep growing. I haven`t gotten anywhere, as far as I`m concerned."

"I like anything that`s three-dimensional, anything I can believe in -even if it`s fantastic, surreal or from another planet."

"Before I was ever in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. The rumor was I was a junkie. I have dark circles under my eyes, deal with it."