Juan Hernandez was an actor out of New York, but what made Juan so great and what made Omar so great was that they both already knew how to box, so we didn't have to take them into a gym and teach them how to throw a left jab.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm totally comfortable today with the success that Omar and 'The Wire' have brought me - living with that character, being recognized and remembered for that character.
Working with Omarion is pretty amazing. That's like my brother. He's really cool.
He saved the production a tremendous amount. Now they did the scene where Omar is on the horse and he's in the deep snow, they went to Finland to do that. That scene they went to Finland for a week. I wasn't around then.
Some of our best fighters are not only Puerto Rican greats but all-time greats of the sport. Carlos Ortiz, Wilfredo Gomez, Wilfredo Benitez and Felix 'Tito' Trinidad and many others have made Puerto Rican boxing what it is today, and I am only an extension of their greatness.
At first, I did stories on people who were maybe just eccentric. Omar was a natural progression from that.
James Franco is a Method actor. I respect Method actors, but he never snapped out of character. Whenever we'd have to get in the ring for boxing scenes, and even during practice, the dude was full-on hitting me.
I think the three Mexican directors - Alejandro Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro - gave all of us foreign, and particularly Latino, directors a big break.
When I first asked my boxing coach, two-time Olympic champion Hector Vinent, what made the Cuban style of fighting distinct from the rest of the world, he smiled and told me to sit on a bench in Prado and watch the Cuban women walk.
Disinterring famous people has become a kind of sport in the Hispanic world. Before Cervantes, it happened to Evita, Che Guevara, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Pablo Neruda.
I think Juan stopped short - he got halfway to the destination and got off the train. He is certainly an excellent writer and a good person, but I'm not a nationalist.