When my career started on daytime soaps, those characters usually didn't have much depth to them. The main goal was to memorize my lines in order to film efficiently the next day. But with 'Jane The Virgin,' the writing is strong, and everything is intentional.

In real life, we think people don't change, but they do. People do change in profound ways with all the different major things that happen in their lives.

When I was 11, I went to Puerto Rico for a month to stay with my grandmother. To see the way people lived there and experience my own culture was wonderful.

I went to Mexico for three months after college and studied Spanish there. And I went to Cuba and studied at the University of Havana. I loved studying in other countries.

When I was in Mexico and started to dream in Spanish, I knew that was a good sign that I was learning the language. It was cool.

My husband is actually Italian-American, and he thought I was Italian when he first met me.