Quotes from Victoria Abril

For most of my career, I've played roles that were written for other actresses.

My first vocation was dance.

You can fake your age or mask it, but the passion that moves the characters has to be real.

I like men with some belly who are a little over the hill.

I went to dance classes from 9 in the morning until 1, then to school from 3 to 10 at night, always under the threat that if I failed a single course I could forget about dancing.

The director took my face in his hands and asked me to show him my teeth, as with a horse. This happened on a Wednesday, and by the following Monday I was shooting.

My current companion, Gerard de Battista, is the father of my two sons.

The director had come to Madrid to court me.

The actress they'd hired had refused to appear naked in front of the camera. I didn't like to appear naked either, but the first thing I did was take off my clothes and jump into the pool completely naked.

Keep your ears open, your eyes open, grab everything you can, react, and learn!

I chose the most explosive dress I could find. I put a ton of makeup on and some great round earrings. I looked like Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun.

When you have to get into the character each morning, give it your voice, your face, it was torture.

People love coming on television, even if they have to show their miseries.

There's nothing more human than two people making love.

My only friends were boys, and I was just one more of them.

Psychiatrists don't solve anything from one day to the next.

I'd heard it was dangerous to walk around Miami.

I'm a small and normal girl, and stories like mine no one likes to tell. Fortunately so, because I wouldn't like to play myself.

Acting is the work of two people - it's only possible when you have the complicity, the help, even the manipulation of a director.

On my fifth film, it was then that I stopped dancing.

The film kept me from working as a secretary. It was a real stroke of luck. A miracle.

I really wanted to work and become independent.

When you have to get into the character each morning, give it your voice, your face, it was torture.

You can fake your age or mask it, but the passion that moves the characters has to be real.