Top 55 Pankaj Kapur Quotes

School days were very special to me as I never found the time to complete my graduation.

I have learnt to become patient as an actor.

We have ambitions, we go on with our lives. We get married and have families. But I was interested to know what happens to those girls who become mothers and grandmothers. They sacrificed their self at a time when they were young and healthy.

I don’t think that a film that has children in it necessarily needs to be a children’s film.

I’ve been saying yes to almost every interesting script that comes my way.

We’ve not given any attention to the people in their 50s and 60s, who need attention, education and engagement, in terms of the society and in terms of their identity as human beings.

In theatre there is a certain discipline that you have to follow, and you have to be experienced to be performing in front of a live audience. It is satisfying to me.

My real uncle was a pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF). I was very enamored with him because he had a great personality. He used to look dashing in his uniform.

Television has been a powerful medium and it has been a huge part of my life at least 15 years.

The Urdu or Hindustani language we use isn’t popular in theatre these days. It was a language that was being used in cinema from the 1950s until the ’80s. It is a very communicative language.

My job is that of an actor. As long as I get to act, get some interesting parts to play, get to be a part of interesting stories, I would certainly want to do it.

I agree I’d like to do more work. But the right kind of roles has to be offered to me. I’m not saying the roles need to be realistic all the time, though that’s what I like connecting with on screen.

I did drama school in Delhi. I am glad I studied in a school where cultural activities were significant.

I feel you need to treat children as equals instead of giving them a complex – you are young, you are small, you don’t know.’

I was looking to play different characters, and films didn’t offer many choices.

In India, writers are underpaid. Universities should start new courses to create more opportunities for them.

Cinema which is well-made, for any kind of audience, is worthy of being watched by just about anybody who would like to watch a good story being told.

Drama should be taught in schools to have more artistic people.

We have had examples in our industry of people working for 30-40 years because of their ability to act. Your looks leave you after a point, you don’t look the same way you did when you were in your 20s or 30s. After that you have only your ability to show.

Creativity should be balanced with commercial interests.

I might not do it again and again, but I would like to test waters which are considered forbidden for me. It is a human tendency.

When an actor gets an opportunity to do things, only then can he prove his mettle.

Back in the 1990s, I had an opportunity to make a film. But I realized that it is better for me to go in stages so I could explore myself as an actor and in the process I started writing scripts.

There is a perception that I do certain kind of films. That’s not true. I am open to any good scripts with a good role.

If you continue working hard and be honest towards your work, then success will come.

What’s most fortunate is that once he turned 18, Shahid assisted me for a while, so we got to spend a lot of time with each other.

As an actor, I am not comfortable with an artificial beard.

I am human and get insecure because I am a middle class man and I need to feed my family and acting is the only job I know.

As a kid I wanted to be a pilot.

When I was doing theatre in Mumbai, actors won’t come because they had television. For many years, I did theatre religiously and in Mumbai, I saw people disrespecting it and it hurt me very badly.

I do a project and then I forget about it because the release of whatever work you have done is not in your hand.

Many people from the industry come up to me and say ‘We don’t see you onscreen much.’ But where are the scripts? Do you think I am not sitting in my office and waiting for something like ‘Matru’ to happen to me? I would love to do four such films in a year.

There have been actors who have been extremely successful by doing just about everything that came their way. But I do what I like doing and give it a certain time.

Women do have better roles to play, more characters are being written. For instance, Surpriya Pathak’s character in ‘Ram Leela’ or Neena Gupta’s part in ‘Badhaai Ho’.’

From the initial days of my career I have always given importance to two things. One is to heed to directors instructions and the other is to have faith on my action director.

It’s a bit unusual that I’m the novelist and the actor who is reading out his own material.

There are millions of people in the world, I have only played a few of them.

When you ask me why I do one film a year, it is not my fault. I’ve chosen what I liked from whatever work came my way.

In the 80s, parallel cinema gained momentum. So, I got back to films and won National awards for Maqbool’ and other films.

I am not a person of schedule when it comes to writing.

I have been rather selective, doing not more than two or thee films a year, so that leaves me with plenty of time to prep for my plays and theatre activities.

I don’t want to do films where I’m just there with nothing much to do.

Every actor must go through the process of learning and not just be in a hurry to become famous. They should learn to live in small amounts and not to try and copy others.

For a father, to separate from his son is not easy.

Even Dopehri,’ if somebody has a bit of imagination, the way it’s written, they will be able to see that it’s a screenplay with dialogues.

The least anyone can do is pay attention to their parents and people who are elder to them.

I became a writer out of the desire to express myself.

As an actor, my desire was always to be different, there was a desire to associate yourself with projects that bring about the contemporary situation.

I wanted to understand the whole medium and that is when I decided to do television. Once I thought that, I was confident about making a film.

I enjoy playing different kind of people.

I think younger generation is much smarter than us. I am happy and proud of my kids.

My son has been wiser than me in terms of his career graph. He saw to it that he became a star first and start to get all the roles that he wanted to do.

I was required to jump from a parachute into a lake and for this I was dangled in the air 100 feet above the ground with the help of a harness. It was scary in the beginning as I had never attempted such a thing before.

My friend Akshay Upadhyay and I used to write poetry and read out to each other.

When you get confidence from your director, as an actor, it is all a matter of how your director says, ‘This is how much I can get out of you.’