Actress Kate del Castillo says in an article published Sunday that she only met secretly with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman for a project to document his life in a movie, and denied suggestions she had received any money from the drug lord.

Del Castillo wrote of the meeting in a first-person article in the Mexican magazine Proceso. She explained how she was contacted by Guzman's attorneys, the discussions leading up to the encounter and her October meeting with Guzman and actor Sean Penn in northeastern Mexico.

“What I wanted to do was document the life of a man named enemy No. 1 by the most powerful nation in the world,” she wrote.

Guzman was captured on Jan. 8 after a manhunt following his escape in July from prison.

The actress wrote that his attorneys contacted her via email in 2014 and later met with her. The lawyers said “El Chapo” wanted to give her the rights to tell his story in a movie, one that she would appear in. “Why me?” the actress recalled asking.

“Because he admires you, respects you and fully trusts you,” she said one of the lawyers told her.

In a second article published in Proceso on Sunday, Del Castillo denied that Guzman had given money to her or her company to make the movie.

— Associated Press