I feel I have a responsibility, as an actress, as a Colombian immigrant, and just as a person, to show people reality. It would be nice to be an actress who loves action movies, but I`m not that kind of actress.

I love theater. Theater is the most amazing thing ever. I want to keep learning and I think that by doing as much theater as I can, it will make me a better actress for film.

In Colombia, in all of the soap operas, there`s a beauty queen, a model and the guy lead is from Ecuador or Peru or Venezuela, but not from Colombia. People like to see on the screen tall, skinny, beautiful models with blond or black hair who dress sexy. The way I dress and the way maybe I am, they didn`t like me.

...if you do theater in Colombia you`ll die from hunger. Now I`m living in New York City. It`s changed my whole point of view on everything. Being independent, having a little apartment, cooking. In Colombia you live with your parents until you`re twenty-five and get a job and then get married.

I was coming from Spain and I was going through customs and gave them my passport to stamp. These two guys were like: "You`re the girl from `Maria`! Can I take my picture with you?" I was like: "Yeah! Of course! But can I take a picture with you?" It was awesome. A year before, the customs were the ones stopping me and causing me a headache. So I took a picture of him with me because I know that Josh wouldn`t believe me.

I think you use method when you`re in trouble with a character. Not being prepared in New York for what would happen to our characters in `Maria Full of Grace` made us imagine and discover.

It is amazing. None of us ever expected [`Maria Full of Grace`] to be so big. It was a film that was made with all the love in the world and it is being so well received. We would have never expected it.

It was kind of like a big thing for me to just go for it, to take my clothes off and be me. It was something that I really thought about, to do or not to do. Then I just said ... I`ll do it. I`m normal, it`s not a big deal. On doing nudity for the first time in The Hottest State.

Maria had such an impact on me that I didn`t want to do something so light. I wanted to do something with power. Anyone can be a beautiful girl. Any girl can be that. So I didn`t do anything for three years. I was waiting for the right roles.

It`s the story of this girl and at the end of the movie she`s a woman. - on Maria Full of Grace.