Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie.
Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.
People who grew up watching Disney films like myself, there are films that are certain benchmarks in my childhood. ‘The Little Mermaid’ was the first movie I remember seeing. ‘Beauty And The Beast,’ ‘Aladdin,’ those are three I remember right off the bat.
All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.
As a child working in films was like a hobby but now it has turned into a profession. And with that, it’s become a life that’s full of pressure and nervousness about Box Office results, competition.
I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it’s obvious he’s not going to be in one of my films.
Initially, I didn’t have much knowledge about cinema. But once I started doing good films, precisely after ‘Kaaka Muttai,’ people started respecting me as a performer.
Everything makes me nervous – except making films.
I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, ‘Educating Rita.’
I’ve been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.
It seems that the small movies are a little more risky and cutting-edge. You’ve got your big commerce and you’ve got your small films that you’re more passionate about.
‘Belko Experiment’ was the harshest, most extreme movie I ever made. But I still think there’s a very cohesive center to it that wasn’t always in my early films. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But I think it’s a commercial thing.
People often ask me why I don’t take up more heroine-oriented roles. My question is, ‘Where are these roles?’ I really appreciate actresses who sign only films with meaty roles. However, there aren’t too many of them. The industry is simply male-dominated.
I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.
Holocaust films will be made and should be made as long as we can’t understand what makes people so cruel to each other.
I think the older that I’m getting, the more I’m understand what a privileged job I have, and what an opportunity I have. Now I’m directing films and I’m getting my first movie in America off the ground, and you start to understand how the system really works.
Lot of people liked me in ‘Manorama Six feet Under,’ ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye,’ ‘Dev D’ and ‘Shanghai’ and the only common thing in all these films is that when we were making them we never thought they would work. The ones that did not work were safe films.
Nobody will tell you that you’re typecast until your films aren’t working; if it’s working, they’ll call it your ‘zone.’
Do I like how digital films look? Sometimes, but sometimes it looks flat, and ugly.
I have actually been very fortunate to be able to make films on my own credit card without having huge funders behind me dictating how the story should be told.
Poor decisions and bad luck are contingencies of most horror films.
I just feel if you are an artist, you always have something to prove, if you are in music or in films, you have to prove that you can still do your best.
I think India is very passionate about films. It’s almost a second religion back home. Due to that, I think film stars are – are really held in great esteem. Not that we’re complaining, but I think with that comes a lot of responsibility.
I’ve done some films that, on paper, were really interesting and special. And for some reason, when they got on screen, it just didn’t work. Well, I didn’t get to watch the film before I decided to do it.
I love good film, whether it’s an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren’t necessarily eccentric ones but they’re the more specific ones.
Ideally, that’s what you’ve got in an acting career is an equal number of dramas and comedies and an equal number of small films and big films.
I have a lot of incomplete short films and incomplete scripts out there.
I have stopped expecting from films. What I expect never happens.
People think that what I see diving must drive what I put into films, but that isn’t really the case. When I am making a Hollywood production, I am telling a different kind of story. Of course, if I see something interesting that works, we will look at it, but they are different things.
A lot of people think I must be weird because of the films I’ve done. I get that.
If we didn’t want to upset anyone, we would make films about sewing, but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally, in a film, it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to be those contrasts and strong things within a film for the total experience.
The buried code of many American films has become: If I kill you, I have won and you have lost. The instinctive ethical code of traditional Hollywood, the code by which characters like James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda lived, has been lost.
You can’t make two films at the same time.
Authors of books are not given very much control over the films that are made from their books.
Most of the most successful films Blumhouse has made have been rejected by everyone else. No one wanted to make ‘Get Out.’ Nobody. Nobody wanted to make ‘The Purge.’ I think it was floating around for three years before it came to us. Nobody wanted to make ‘The Gift,’ when it was a script called ‘Weirdo.’
I was not raised with films. And when Alain Resnais did the editing on my first film, he said, ‘You should go to the Cinematheque.’ I didn’t even know we had one in Paris.
I’m not saying that it’s wrong to make huge Hollywood films but it’s just a different kind of feeling, a different sort of pleasure.
In the 80s, parallel cinema gained momentum. So, I got back to films and won National awards for Maqbool’ and other films.
I’d grown up loving English films. I was a huge Monty Python fanatic as a kid.
I’m so sick of independent films being co-opted by Hollywood. You’re making a project that’s small, really personal, and the first thing anyone asks in any meeting is, ‘Who’s in it?’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’
Growing up, I loved films like ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘On the Waterfront’ and became a huge fan of Marlon Brando.
I was never a villain on the stage. I always played strong, sympathetic types. My first stage role with a speaking part, believe it or not, was as a priest. It wasn’t until I began acting in films that the producers and directors saw me primarily as a bizarre villain.
I would love to get into feature films; I’m willing to do an action flick, I’m willing to do a romantic comedy.
I have played many negative roles in films, and television gives me an opportunity to break through this image and portray another side to me.
Fortunately or not, expectations are always high for all my films.
I do films that I like. I have done comedy, romance, everything, and I always like to do it differently from the previous ones.
I want to keep doing interesting work with interesting people in whatever form that may take, but I want to play the big parts of classical theatre; I want to go on stage and play great Shakespearean roles and, at the same time, do amazing, challenging indie films and comedy, and I want to do it all. I am greedy.
When ‘Pizza’ released, I was a nobody. Initially, we managed to get only 100 screens. But, after its success, the producers of ‘Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom’ got 150 screens and also released the film in the U.S. Now, distributors are keen to invest in my films because they feel I have face value.
I just want my films to work. The hit or flop verdict really affects me. I seriously analyse what went wrong if a film turns out to be a dud!
As an actor with a star status, I can’t restrict myself to one type of films and roles.
My taste in watching things runs from dramas and low-budget films to high-end fantasy/science fiction.
I did ‘Vice’ with Christian Bale and ‘Foxcatcher’ with Steve Carell – both of those films had significant prosthetic work. You do need to be cognizant of the fact that the material that you’re photographing is not skin.
In all the horror films that I have done, all of those women were strong women. I don’t feel I ever played the victim, although I was always in jeopardy.
Films like ‘Namo Venkateshaya’ give immense satisfaction, happiness, and makes us feel blessed, and so I consider it the best film in my career.
Music for films allow a great deal of diversity and the more you widen your skills, the better you become.
I have enjoyed writing my own stuff, and it’s been a privilege to be able to scrap some money together to be able to make films from my own scripts.
I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character, I don’t look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don’t think of them as like Charlize Theron films.
