she always pushed school. - she was the first one in the whole family with a bachelor's degree. - my parents, you know, they came from mexico. she's, you know, second generation. but her sphere of influence is like crazy, dude. you know, like it's really affected everyone. like, i would have never thought to be an actor. you know, i never dreamt that big. - she's the one who told him to go on his first audition. - incredible. - but he's always been a hard worker, dude. - yeah. - even if he didn't succeed in acting, whatever else he would have done, he would have been-- he would have been great at it, dude, period. that's it. - yeah, there, you got it. you go it. - there you go, look at that. that's my best friend. - is that right? - he's gonna put a poster, michael peña for president. - it sounds like you always had a work ethic and you always had a sense of keeping at something till you got good at it, like you were driven. - yeah, and i learned it from that guy, from my dad. - which guy? - from that guy. [laughter] he had a full-time job. and then he had a job at night and then he had a job on the weekends. - right. - to put me through prep school. - prep school was-- - it was expensive. - yeah, yeah. - dude i had to work two full-time jobs in the summer.