I'd been taking a break [from movies] when this script kind of fell in my lap. I read it and loved it. It's a terrific character, plus I couldn't be more excited to work with the cast that's been put together.

He kind of fell into our lap. He moved down here and started calling the school asking if there was an opening, and we had one. It's good for us because you don't get lacrosse people falling in your lap.

It was supposed to be an Asian girl, so when I read the script I said, 'How am I going convince John Singleton that what he needs is a crazy Latin woman?' But I did. I got lucky.

Even when you read the script of 'Big Fish,' which is really a terrific script, you don't really get into the world that he's creating until you take that step with him, that first step into a world he's created in his mind.

I felt him scrambling. I fell backwards, and when I hit the rocks I felt my back break, like a pop, and my legs went numb.

Were you clinically depressed when all that happened?