It was important because I loved Zorro, the persona, ever since I was a kid, long before I had the possibility of doing it. So when Steven Spielberg came up to me at the Oscars -- I think it was in 1994 -- and said 'do you know Zorro?' I was like, 'Yeah, I know the character of Zorro.' And then he said, 'Well, would you like to do it?' And I said, 'Of course!'

The way we approached the character was important to me. I didn't want him to be perfect all of the time -- that wasn't interesting to me. But the great thing about the first film was that he isn't Zorro to begin with -- Anthony [Hopkins] is and he has to earn it. And we made him clumsy and awkward, a man who failed in front of the audience all of the time, and in that way we humanised him.

I think that brought him closer to the audience. He was like an underdog. It was like one of them becoming Zorro and I loved all of those mishaps he went through, it was a source of comedy and I like that.