Top 30 Zoya Akhtar Quotes

Because you don’t have opportunity to study, you don’t have opportunity to further yourself. And you kind of tend to believe your lot that this is what you have been given. I think on some level we have colonised people, our own people.

At 19, while studying at St Xavier’s College and majoring in literature and sociology, I got my first job as a copywriter. It was at a company called the Script Shop.

You realize you have to become aware of your inner monologue. The things you say to yourself. This raised my consciousness so it was vital to my growth, I would say.

I feel blessed and lucky with my family, not because of the privilege, of course, I’m grateful for that as well that we never wanted anything.

I like hip-hop personally. It is a genre I am very attached to and have been listening to all my life. But I have always engaged with foreign artistes, never with mainstream Indian hip-hop rap space.

It is nice to be out there, amongst contemporaries on a global scale. You meet different people, see different things, meet different producers, eventually grow to collaborate in different ways. The world is getting smaller. It’s nice not to be insular.

I only drink wine, beer, and champagne. I’ve never had hard liquor, I’ve never had a whiskey drink in my life. I just don’t like it.

I was an executive producer. I’ve done a lot of jobs and I think each one helps you get closer to what you want as a director. It also helps you – when you work with different filmmakers – to absorb, to adapt, to know what to watch out for, to know pitfalls.

I feel like all my films have my politics. As a film-maker, whatever story you’re telling, your value system comes out.

What a good actor brings to a script is something, sometimes, even directors can’t imagine. The director should always have the last say though.

I’ve grown up in the film industry and I’ve been watching them, analyzing them, laughing at them, totally understanding them and getting their point of view, and, at times, taking up for them. So I’m part of it and it’s part of me.

I have friends and experience from everywhere; I’ve worked in all kinds of locations and situations and in all kinds of job profiles, so there’s a varied experience that comes handy. And there’s something nice when you do something you’ve to push yourself to do it.

As a director the first level of management is people. You have to deal with about 100 creative egos and make sure they subscribe to your vision and give you their best.

I have learnt not to ignore instincts. While making a film, when your gut feels that you are going wrong, please take that seriously.

I draw cinematic and photography and art references from everywhere. That’s part of my job. So yes, you watch films, you see artists for palettes, photographers for mood.

At the end of my life, I want to have a body of work that has everything.

As a filmmaker when you show your film to anybody, you want it to be liked. You want the reviews to be positive. After watching your film, you want people to feel good.

As far as the theatrical experience is concerned, I will be highly disappointed if that goes away. I have grown up watching films in theatres so that community experience should never go.

I love music, but can’t hold a note in a bucket. I can’t sing, can’t play an instrument.

Every time we have a woman on-screen, we can empower her in a different way rather than just giving a speech on the importance of equality and empowerment. I think sometimes we have to show her as powerful.

I am thrilled and very grateful that ‘Gully Boy’ has been picked as India’s official entry for the Oscars.

This is kind of a dual existence where you are harsh but at the same time emotional. You are there because you have experienced trauma.

But disco is the remedy for ghosts.

See I think we are nervous about every movie before it’s release, irrespective of who has directed the movie.

When it comes to writing characters, whether men or women, I think a good writer writes good characters. I know many men who, for years, have written strong, progressive women characters.

When you colonise someone’s dream, that’s the worst thing you can do.

I am always pleasantly surprised by the criticism because I learn from it and sometimes shocked by it.

I think there is nothing more important in forming a human being than your family. It is how you have been brought up and been taken care of that eventually is how you will deal with and treat the world.

I’m obsessed with people, I’m obsessed with human behavior. I just watch people.

I want to make a period film, I want to make a film set in another country. I want to make a foreign film. I want to make everything eventually. I am a storyteller. I have many stories to tell.