Victoria Abril

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

“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.”

“I really wanted to work and become independent.”

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

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

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

“The director had come to Madrid to court me.”

“My first vocation was dance.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Compared to dancing, films seemed to me to be the work of lay bums. There was no physical pain; it was enough to say and imagine what was in the script. It was very easy for me.”

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

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

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

“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.”