B.L. You’ve mastered the stage, small screen and movies. I personally think that this role of Diego Rivera was probably the biggest challenge of your career. Was it?
A.M. You’re right. I think it was. There seemed to be a lot at stake. This film about Frida Kahlo has been around for almost a decade and there’s been a long history of people wanting to make the movie. I suppose that contributes to the sense of occasion that this cold be quite an event. Then it becomes a time when all of that stuff just becomes hyperbole. You have to remember that you’re just making a film -- telling a story in the best possible way.

B.L. I heard you really went out of your way to get into the role of Diego.
A. M. You know its funny. Actors just go off in their little holes and do their little bits of research and burrow away at their thing. For a while, my house was full of books on Frida and Diego. I went out and bought these reproductions of some of their really well known paintings and stuck them up everywhere. I had photographs of Diego during various stages of his life and I was putting on a lot of weight. I was living in this little cocoon of Diego land and every now and then I would pop up and grab another Quesadilla and disappear again. (laughs) So you kind of get a bit obsessive. But, hopefully, by the end of it, this chrysalis that you’ve created will crack and out will come a movie that people are interested in seeing.

B.L. How difficult is it for as an actor to portray someone who really lived? I would imagine that you have a huge responsibility on your hands.
A.M. I think that the procedure or whatever it is that you go through to do the work is essentially the same except that when it’s a real person there’s a certain responsibility not to misrepresent them and to tell the truth no matter how good or bad that truth might be. You have to try and be objective, but always serve the story rather than serving yourself.

B.L. The onscreen chemistry you have with Salma Hayek is wonderful. The whole relationship between Frida and Diego is extremely frustrating and I kept wondering what was it that kept those two together? They had such a love- hate relationship.
A.M. There was something there, that indefinable thing, the fact that after everything that they went through -- the break ups, the cheating all that — they still had a need for each other until the end of their lives. That’s why it’s such a great love story. It may not be the kind of love story most of us understand, but it’s certainly something quite amazing.

B.L. What surprised you most about Salma Hayek?
A.M. I knew Salma before we started making the film and I knew she was dedicated and had a mission to make this movie. But what surprised me, and what I was delighted by, was her amazing knowledge of every facet of filmmaking. Not just the acting, Salma understands how to produce, market and everything. If she were white and male, she’d be as big as Harvey Weinstein by now!