RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
Molina made his film debut as a jungle guide who pays dearly for trying to double-cross Indiana Jones.

"We were desperately trying to get this one shot and Steven Spielberg asked me to like fall down out of the [frame]. And I said something like, 'Well I'm not sure if that's quite right, Steven. It doesn't feel very real to me.' He was very sweet. He just looked at me, put his arm on my shoulder and said, 'Fred, I don't know anything about the real world, I make movies.' Which I think was his polite but firm way of saying, 'Just shut up and do the job.' When I think of my arrogance, I can't believe I said it."

BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997)
As a coked-up drug dealer who adores the songs Jessie's Girl and Sister Christian, Molina turned his only sequence into arguably the film's most memorable.

"I'd barely heard of Rick Springfield [who recorded Jessie's Girl]. And Sister Christian wasn't a hit in England so Paul [Thomas Anderson, the director] made me a copy and I had it on all the time. I listened to it over and over to learn it. So [eventually] it sort of felt like part of my DNA. Recently I walked into a video store and Sister Christian happened to be playing. And the guy behind the counter kind of went, 'Oh, wow, oh my God.' Then he said something like, 'It was already on. [laughs]'"

CHOCOLAT (2000)
While shooting the scene where his uptight French mayor devours a heap of chocolate, Molina proved just how committed he is to his craft.

"By the time we did it, I'd gone through something like four pounds of chocolate. It took about an hour and a half with just three or four takes, but I was just literally gorging myself. [Before filming] I said to Lasse [Hallström, the director] that we should make that my last scene because I knew I wasn't going to feel very well the next day because of all the sugar. It ended up feeling like a hangover, like I'd drunk too much. But I was back on chocolate within about two days, because when you've got a desire for it, you've got a desire for it."