Miami, Aug 7 (IANS/EFE): Sandra Echeverria, star of the Univision primetime telenovela "La Fuerza del Destino" (The Force of Destiny), has launched a self-titled album that unveils the reserved Mexican celebrity's more personal side.

"I don't like to be in the public eye or talk about my private life. Where I do show my true self is in my songs - I wrote eight of the numbers on this disc that show me just the way I am," Echeverria told EFE in a telephone interview from Mexico.

The album, "Sandra Echeverria", includes the theme song from "La Fuerza del Destino", which she sings as a duet with Marc Anthony.

"Doing a recording with him was something special - he's a great musician. But the whole disc is very special for me, because music lets me express what I feel and tell stories about people I knew and who inspired me...music is my first love," she said.

The 29-year-old Echeverria began her career at 14 as a vocalist with the Perfiles group, which later changed its name to Crush, and with it recorded two albums and went on several concert tours.

"Music is what I always dreamed of doing. But at a certain point in my career they convinced me to act and that started me acting," she said.

Her debut as an actress was in 2002 with the telenovela "Subete a Mi Moto" (Get on My Motorcycle), in which she appeared with such youthful stars as Barbara Mori and Michel Brown.

"After giving it a try, I discovered that I liked acting and now I want to do both things at the same time," she said.

Besides her small-screen series "La Fuerza del Destino", Sandra has just finished filming "Savages", a movie based on the novel of the same name by Don Winslow, together with Uma Thurman and John Travolta.