It was never important to me to display my sexuality. I didn't feel like I had to prove I was a babe to anyone. So I think maybe I always took parts based on the story and director, and very rarely on what the character was. (The roles) I get offered (are) isolated women. . . . It is easier for them to see me as a woman on my own. I can have a token love story, but in the end I'm gonna be this strong woman. Maybe it's harder for them to see me in a couples situation.

When I arrived in Los Angeles and began going on auditions, I was never considered for Latina roles. I was "ethnic" but not decidedly Latina looking. If they were hiring a Latina to play a Latina, they wanted her to "look like a Latina" e.g. high cheek bones, dark skin and a mane of black hair. Well, I just couldn't get arrested by casting directors as a Latina. I think this led to the realization that I was going to have to blaze a trail for myself because I didn't fit into one particular "type."…

I can only speak for myself, but as an actor i wasn’t like, “I’m going to challenge the way people see Latin people.” I was just happy to get roles. I tried to find new material in characters, but I wasn’t post-race about it or anything like that. I was just looking at it as just work. I wasn’t framing myself, so I wasn’t framing characters. Now I see the importance of playing [certain types of] characters. I’m not necessarily choosing characters that go against stereotypes, I’m choosing characters that you don’t even have time to question where they would fit in. Or what box they would fit into.

I told them that I wanted to be able to show the stronger side of women. I didn’t want to do the obvious role that you see in Hollywood most of the time, which is the heartbroken girl who’s waiting to be rescued by the guy, blah, blah, blah.

I was told once that I didn't play the Hollywood game, and that's why I wasn't a big star. What they meant when they said that was that I don't go to parties, and when I go to an audition and I don't like the script, they know it. I don't flirt and I don't play the people that I'm meeting with. In the next breath, this person said to me, ‘When you're passionate about a role, there's nobody that can touch you, but you have to learn to do this also...’ But I don't know how to sit there and pretend I love something when I don't!

[Regarding how the L Word change how she selects her roles] I really have a lot less tolerance for being subjugated to simply being the emotional center of a story, rather than being the active portion of the plot. It's as if women can't drive the action so often in stories. I don't know who made up that rule but it can get very frustrating if there's not more to play.

I'm going to tell you something: There's an element to that passion that I always leave out and that I have recently learned to understand, and it has helped me a lot. … I was okay if it didn't happen. … I didn't realize this before. As long as I knew I did my very, very best, I was okay. I was so okay that when I made the transition from Mexico to Los Angeles, I said to myself I have something now. Is it what I want? No. I was making money, I was an actress, and I was famous. It looked like it's what I wanted, but it was not. And I was wise enough to recognize it. It's what others would think that I'd want, and sometimes that makes you feel it's good enough... To be able to brag a lot on life — that's everybody's dream... But is it your dream? And it wasn't my dream. And so I said that I'm going to leave it. This means I go there, and maybe it doesn't happen. And I am trading this, which looks like it's great, for this nothing that could be anything. … And then I was excited about being brave about it and saying, "What I left didn't grab me by the balls."

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I realised acting could be a creative experience.