If everyone worked with wide-angle lenses, I’d shoot all my films in 75mm, because I believe very strongly in the possibilities of the 75mm.
Personally, I can’t stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there’s 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don’t know why those directors aren’t asked why they’re such specialists for violence.
In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.
Well, I’ll keep on auditioning and one day maybe I’ll go to LA and try out for films there.
I guess short films have a bright future… The advantage is budget.
I would like to act in films of all genres.
The only reason I took up small roles in big banner films was in the hope to get the attention of other directors.
The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.
I do get offered all kind of films by and large, but the bulk of it I may say is of a certain sensibility.
When I did ‘Bird,’ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.
I like ‘The Usual Suspects’. Great film. I also like ‘Scarface’, films like that. Lots of gangster films. I really like watching all kinds of films, dramas, romance. I’ll watch comedies. I like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle. I’d like to meet them.
Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you’ve never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius.
Well just meeting J. K. Rowling was amazing because she created all this world. And all the fans, we all get so obsessed with it and then you met the one person who made it all up. It was just so amazing. And I was just so amazed that that she wrote this book and all of the films have happened.
The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.
I haven’t seen ‘Himalay Putra’ since the time it released. I can’t say there is any special reason for not seeing it. But I don’t watch my older films. It doesn’t give me a kick.
Moving from chair to chair, from coffee machine to coffee machine is the limit of my action in most films. But I enjoy being cast in them because I love watching them.
I don’t consider any film of mine bad. I give all my films the importance they deserve. I look at all my roles with the same kind of seriousness.
I used to get 2000 as pocket money, and I was being offered a car and an opportunity to make lakhs, so I said a yes. I was a kid and got homesick over my 40-day schedule in Bangalore and decided that I would only do films in the South if they were 10-day roles.
When I’m writing fiction, I read nonfiction or biographies. Now I’m watching very old movies or old foreign films. I don’t immerse myself in whatever’s going on in whatever area I’m working in.
My feeling is, I do a lot of low-budget films. I don’t do low-budget acting. I have no interest in just goofballing my way through, thinking, ‘Ah, no one’s ever going to see this anyway.’
I have to say I’ve been lucky in that way in that I’ve been able to go from different films and different genres with different challenges.
Before, it was just about making the films – and now it’s releasing them. Which is a steep learning curve.
The film ‘Black Orpheus’ is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.
I’ve never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind. Apart from the beauty of looks and figure, which I cannot claim to have, there’s just a particular kind of ordinary-Joe quality that a film star needs to have.
I make films to explore concepts and raise questions, not tell the audience what to think.
One has to be careful about the kind of content that’s shown in films or on television.
Personal questions, or accusations about delivering flops or not doing good films end up being accusatory sessions where I have to defend myself. That’s why I prefer not to do interviews.
A lot of films come out before they’re finished.
On films, you have the liberty of working out the details, the psychology, taking maybe more risks and takes than you can in television just because you can’t be figuring things out on the day.
I think there’s an instinct to make grotesque horror films that are purely carnal, like the ‘Saw’ movies.
When watching ‘The Passion,’ Jews and Christians are watching two entirely different films. For two hours, Christians watch their Savior tortured and killed. For the same two hours, Jews watch Jews arrange the killing and torture of the Christians’ Savior.
As far as I’m concerned, Cate Blanchett is a goddess, but she’s really down to earth. She’s got all those Oscars, she’s made all those amazing films and she could spend her whole life doing that, but what does she also do? She gives birth to three boys and creates her own theatre in Sydney.
I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That’s still what I am doing. The end.
Yes, films need to make their money back – it’s an expensive business, and people need to be paid for what’s involved – but just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should.
The allegations against Harvey Weinstein are clearly deplorable. No matter how many great films he’s bullied into production, or his guilt-induced contributions to left-minded ideals, this kind of intimidation and abuse of power is perverse and utterly unforgivable. Period.
I chose films made by people I wanted to work with, about subject matter I thought was intriguing.
There were a lot of people dreaming about making films, and they would finance maybe 6 films a year. Because they were funded by the government, the films sort-of had to deal with serious social issues – and, as a result, nobody went to see those films.
I never maligned the sanctity of cinema in my career. I always selected themes and made films with the fervent hope that they will never demoralise viewers.
Everyone has their ‘Showgirls.’ We remember the great films actors have been in, and the rest get forgotten. But occasionally, people like to revisit the ones that get swept aside.
I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.
I think they quite like me when I work because I’m one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don’t bring their costs in back home, once they’re shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs.
I would not have been interested in doing just a revenge film simply because I have seen so many revenge films right from Clint Eastwood films to Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘Zanjeer’, ‘Sholay’ and ‘Ghayal’ and various variants of them.
I said, ‘I’m going to the United States to study with Stella Adler and do movies because nobody here has done it and my passion is films.’ But I came here and I didn’t speak English, I didn’t have a green card, I didn’t know I had to have an agent, I couldn’t drive, I was dyslexic.
If I watch ‘Gone With the Wind,’ I always find it interesting. I think, ‘What’s going to happen next? What’s that character going to do?’ But you know, you never really need to watch the films you made again. They stay inside you, always with you.
Even in Haiti, I saw John Wayne movies. American cinema has always been the dominant cinema throughout the world, and people tend to forget that. People aren’t just seeing these films in California or Florida. They’re seeing them in Haiti, in Congo, in France, in Italy and in Asia. That is the power of Hollywood.
I’ve been able to make films over the past 10 years but still maintain my anonymity.
Everyone wants to do only those films which they find interesting. That is the way the industry works.
I think that short films often contain an originality, a creative freedom, an energy and an invention that is inspiring and entertaining. I think they are, as Shakespeare put it, a good deed in a naughty world.
I don’t think films about working class people are sad at all; I think they’re funny and lively and invigorating and warm and generous and full of good things.
To make films, you have to have something to say. To have something to say, you have to be a student of life. And to be a student of life, you have to be feeding yourself with what life, politics, society, and your family fuels you with.
I think drug movies free the director to make intense films.
Then all of a sudden, Quentin Tarantino comes along and puts a song from 40 years ago in one of his films and they’ve suddenly discovered you. That was a real gift that Quentin gave me.
I was not getting work, even after auditioning for films. So I started working in a studio as a photographer; I assisted a cinematographer for two ads. I was thinking that I will get into photography or cinematography or assist someone. But then the ‘Dangal’ offer came, and I was busy with the auditions.
