I used to be very vain about my thumbs. I have fat thumbs. If there’s a movie where you see me on the phone, it’s not my hands.
I didn’t know what to expect from a famous movie star; maybe that he’d be sort of stuck-up, you know. But not Gary Cooper. He horsed around so much… that I had a hard time painting him.
Editing is the only process. The shooting is the pleasant work. The editing makes the movie, so I spend all my life in editing.
I have to say that whatever decisions I make, I really do think that movie making is a director’s medium. They are the people that ultimately shape the film, and a director can take great material and turn it into garbage if they are not capable of making a good movie.
As a parent myself, I can appreciate the MPAA and what they’re supposed to do, but what happens with NC-17 is that the MPAA is basically taking away the rights of parents. They’re basically telling me that I can’t show my kids this movie if I decide they can see it.
I’m not scared of seeing bugs, but I get really scared if they crawl on me. I’m also really bad at watching horror films. During my freshman year of high school, I was watching a horror movie with a guy and I ended up hugging him without realising it.
When I start a movie, the first day, I feel like a duck.
Being an actor on a movie set is like going to the playground at recess.
The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.
It’s the rare book that’s able to transport you in a way that a movie does.
No phone, a movie, a glass of wine, and some salad. Perfect!
I’m not a real movie star. I’ve still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
When a fan buys a ticket for a cricket match or a movie, he is not worried about the colour, creed, or religion of the person sitting next to him. If you look at any actor’s fan base in India, you will find that they are from different regions.
Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it’s mad that people like me are listened to – you know, rap stars and movie stars.
In, like, seventh or eighth grade every day after school, my friend Andrew and I would watch ‘Wayne’s World.’ And I think it’s a great example of a sketch effectively turned into a movie and a story that really works with a good journey. Not easily accomplished, but such a good journey.
I read and watch movies. I can’t go to the movie theater much anymore, though, because I get recognized. It’s worse sometimes if I wear a costume and try not to get recognized. I watch most of my films on airplanes.
And if you’re a golfer and you watch a golf film and Matt Damon swing, and it’s not great, then you’re not going to believe in the golf story, you’re not going to believe in the rest of the film. That’s the whole movie, so if that swing looks like crap, the movie’s crap.
That’s what I did whenever I loved a movie: I’d get together with my friends and play it out and re-enact it.
A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.
Kids today don’t watch a black and white movie.
‘Drake and Josh’ was strictly nine to five. We’d go in and know what we were doing, and ‘Superhero Movie’ was just nuttiness every day because there’s a joke every ten seconds.
Some people had fathers who were bankers or farmers, my father made films, that’s how I saw it. As for the movie stars, they were just around, some of them were friends, others weren’t, it was all just a part of my everyday life.
The script is a blueprint for the film – there are very few bad scripts that make good movies. If you really like the character and understand the utility it serves within the movie, that’s a part of my process.
I feel I’ve done everything late in life. Got married late, and I didn’t do my first movie until I was 31. But in this crazy business, you never know what’s going to happen. Maybe after 20 years of making movies I’ll become an overnight sensation.
Reading a book, watching a movie, going to a play, it’s transporting, and very, very exciting. And to be a part of that, creating things with your imagination, whoa.
