At heart, we believe that the films that work well are the films that do touch people emotionally.
Making films has never just been a job to me; it is my life. I have some interests outside of acting – I sing and I’ve written books, for instance – but acting is what keeps me going: it’s what I do; it gives life purpose.
What bothered me was playing one-dimensional parts in films which were really about, ‘Boy Meets Girl,’ ‘Will Boy Get Girl?’
‘Monty Python’ is now more recognised by the films than by the TV series.
You can tell so much about somebody by the films they make, and it’s only while I approach this do I now realize how much of the filmmaker you can see in their films.
It is my good fortune that I am the first Sikh to be playing lead roles in Hindi films.
Fashion designing involves a lot of work, and, as opposed to the general perception, it is different from costume designing for films. While a fashion designer can take up a costume designer’s role, it is not possible vice versa.
With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.
I have done six films with the Bhatt camp and I know that they are good at marketing, packaging the film and they are very good with music, a track record that they have proven since 25 years.
My films are of paramount importance to me, the same as my family. That’s not going to change. This is a balance I have to strike throughout my life.
I honestly don’t understand the big fuss made over nudity and sex in films. It’s silly.
Any film is about heroism: the triumph of good over evil. If you look back at my films, you will see that as a recurring theme.
I am not against songs in films. We come from an oral tradition of storytelling. I have grown up listening to epics in oral rendition and oral rendition always had music.
I think it’s kind of odd that ‘This Old Road’ was the first video I ever did. Because of all of the work I had done in films and everything, you’d think I would have done a video before that.
I don’t want to just do independent movies and I don’t want to just do adventure films. I enjoy both, and I think both are cogent.
I’ve certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. I’ve been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I’ve accepted a part since then, because I’ve been given much better parts in films.
I’m sick of all these knights in shining armor parts, I want to do something worthwhile like plays and films that have something to say.
I do know that I’ve read somewhere that it’s been statistically proven that in times of war, horror films are much more popular. I don’t know why that is. You’d think it’d be the opposite. You’d think people would want to escape from it.
I make commercial films only. I don’t make small, boring films.
Scoring animated films, I have the exact same approach and philosophy as I do for a live action. It’s all story- and character-driven. I don’t care if it’s a mouse or Tom Cruise.
The joy of tasting different cultures is it gives you a broad perspective, and you don’t judge people from stereotypical characters you see in films.
I feel happy that I am being honoured for doing films of my own liking.
My favorite sequels are basically all Mike Myers films – ‘Wayne’s World 2,’ ‘Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,’ ‘Shrek 2.’ Anything he does, it’s best the second time around. He needs to do ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer 2.’
Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them.
If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.
My films are a personal reflection on the impact that the state – the system and the world – has on me.
That’s a battle we are always fighting whenever we cut trailers or promos for films. We always wonder how much to say, and every filmmaker wants to say the minimum. You don’t want to reveal your film and ruin the viewing experience.
When I talk to some of the younger filmmakers, they are so worried about their films that, eventually, this state of being worried reflects itself in and helps the final work. Whereas, with projects that are meticulously planned, you look at the end result and it is full of emptiness.
I don’t plan my roles or my films.
I probably haven’t even seen ten of the films I’ve done. I don’t get a joy out of it, and I don’t go to the movies.
‘The Sound of Music’ is one of my favourite old musical films.
I worked with some directors, and it was really collaborative, and I was sort of writing with them. I was giving so many pieces of myself to their movies, I thought, ‘It’s about time I use my own voice for me, and establish my own voice.’ So I knew I wanted to make films.
‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ is one of my favorite films, where you have a story that really juxtaposes a lot of ideas that we have about family and about parenting.
I don’t intentionally make my films with the express goal of surprising the viewer.
I’d be doing all sorts of odd jobs and traveling the world. Let alone if I wasn’t an actress, even now if my films stop doing well and people stop liking me, I’d go do odd jobs, like a waitress or something like that and save just about enough to see the world.
Anti-capitalism is nothing new in Hollywood. From ‘Wall-E’ to ‘Avatar,’ corporations are routinely depicted as evil. The contradiction of corporate-funded films denouncing corporations is an irony capitalism cannot just absorb, but thrive on. Yet this anti-capitalism is only allowed within limits.
To join or not to join films was the biggest choice I had to make. I’d done two years of biogenetic engineering, was an economics graduate and a gold medalist. I had also been a Bharatanatyam dancer from age five, always won the best actress award in school. Finally, I decided to do things for my soul, chose to act.
When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’
Because I direct films, I have to live in a major English-speaking production center. That narrows it down to three places: Los Angeles, New York and London. I like New York, but it’s inferior to London as a production center. Hollywood is best, but I don’t like living there.
My father Kamran Khan was a successful producer, director and actor in B-grade films.
I remember being inspired myself when smaller films, whether it’s ‘Beasts’ or ‘Winter’s Bone,’ wound up in the Oscars lineup.
There aren’t enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the ‘poor heartbroken girl.’
In Telugu filmdom, audiences like to see their hero dance, fight and play a larger-than-life character. It’s precisely why most of our commercial films do extremely well and get remade too.
Personally, I think the silent films were more effective for L&H, but the sound was of great value in enhancing the effects – dialog eliminated a lot of action & sight gags – I always feel that ‘action’ speaks louder than words.
People use location as a language in films, and Quentin uses action as a language in his films. There’s really not a lot of violence. It’s more of an emotional beat than it is a physical beat.
Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.
I am Indian, and my home is Kampala. My world is already diverse. But films are financed by those who want to see themselves on screen, and it is a white male world. Still, it does feel like America is waking up. Let’s hope it’s the start of an avalanche.
So many Christmas films either are twee, or try and go super edgy, then stick on something Christmassy at the end of the movie.
Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end – I never do.
My dream is to become a director. I want to direct a Hindi film. I have two scripts ready. One of them is a fantasy-adventure, while the other is a thriller. I’ve assisted my brother Selvaraghavan, who’s a well-known director in Tamil cinema. I’ve also made short films.
With action films, it’s great if it’s not just driven by action, but by a good story and interesting characters, as well. Though, there’s nothin’ like kicking butt!
I used to be quite negative about going back to Greece and making something, but there is a certain kind of freedom that I’ve experienced while I was making films in Greece that is hard to replicate elsewhere.
I found in making and directing films that the less you have voiceover, the better it is.
To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate – unlike most films.
150 shooting days is quite normal, which is not the case in Hollywood, as I am told. Most of the big films there are done in 70 or 80 days.
In a lot of my films, the biggest theme is family, making families out of those around you.
My fans are there because of my work, because of the films that I did. They are my assets.
