Words matter. These are the best Farah Khan Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I make commercial films only. I don’t make small, boring films.
People don’t wish to watch masala films of the ’50s any more. Audiences do not want loud films at all. They are watching Netflix and Amazon that have fresh ideas.
When I meet parents in my children’s school, they say there aren’t good films for kids to watch. I wonder about the lack of such films too. What do my kids watch?
Somewhere my dad gave up. He was really so successful at his level that after a point he could not handle failure.
You can only make the film that’s in you.
Professionally, I like doing one thing at a time and enjoy directing the most.
God bless IVF because it’s never too late to conceive any more. However, having said that, I have to point out that going through IVF is a gruelling procedure; maybe that’s why only a woman can go through it!
One should be able to take the whole family along to watch a film.
I feel 95 per cent of Indian boys are mama’s boys and a few of them couldn’t come out of their mother’s shadows. Salman Khan is one of them. I feel one of the reasons he is unable to find a soul mate is he looks for his mother in every girl.
The idea of directing my own movie is definitely more challenging than choreography.
After ‘Main Hoon Na,’ I got married; so I took some time off.
It is really a sad state of affairs if I am still the only commercially successful woman director. We need a lot more commercially viable women, not only in direction.
I always say that I’m a filmmaker, not a factory. I don’t have to churn out films every six months.
When I became a choreographer, I was not assisting any choreographer. I was assisting the director Mansoor Ali Khan for ‘Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.’ I was the fourth assistant director.
When I see a lot of the big Hollywood movies, I see they are all financed by Indian studios.
I am not anti-men, I believe truly that we are meant to be equal. We should be judged equally and I think I am a living example of feminism.
Every person with a phone is a critic.
I always feel your movie will be as strong as your weakest link.
The problem with people is that no matter how good you are at what you do, it’s never enough for them. There will always be someone to point out some flaw. Someone will always find something lacking in you.
One of my favourite scenes ever is in Mr India – when the kids are hungry and Sridevi comes with the pastries etc, and they become friends. It’s impossible not to get teary-eyed.
I always say that cinema reflects life, not the other way round.
IVF is a wonderful thing. One has to ignore the injections as the reality is that nobody is going to invent a pill that you can take to get a baby.
I have fully retired as a choreographer. I do not have the patience now to make actors learn their steps. For me, that ship has sailed. I have enjoyed 22 years of it.
People tend to take themselves too seriously.
I make aesthetic movies which are grand and with some of the biggest stars. It’s not fair to run them down. I don’t make tacky films.
Cinema, art and culture should definitely be shared. These things transcend borders.
I prefer doing work that projects me as a woman and a mother.
Whenever I visit abroad, people recognise me – it feels great.
I was chosen over British and French choreographers to work on ‘Bombay Dreams.’
Before I had my babies, I would tend to be self-absorbed, and worry about little things, but now I am a changed person.
Manmohan Desai’s films pack a lot of joy and have a child-like quality and you can see the director is having fun, but my movies don’t suspend disbelief that much. But it’s good to be compared to Manmohan Desai. He was run down by critics in his time.
The most creative director I have worked with is Mani Ratnam.
Even as one of the best choreographers in the country, I was criticised for a lot of things I have done in life.
I’d taken ‘Om Shanti Om’ to Japan and they loved it because they just love the not holding back of emotions.
A part of ‘Happy New Year’ is inspired by western pop culture, the pop music videos of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Duran Duran in the ’80s.
The stars that I’ve worked with started their careers almost at the same time as me. Whether it is Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan or Salman Khan.
Adopting a pet is like taking the responsibility of a baby.
Personally, I love being a mother the most. I dream of taking holidays with my three kids. I want to take my kids to beaches, gardens, the farm, malls everywhere.
I am not an actress.
I never thought ‘Mein Hoon Na’ will do so well in Pakistan. Whenever I meet Pakistanis in London or the U.S., they have so much love and affection for me because of ‘Mein Hoon Na,’ which was my most criticised film in India.
I would never want to do a content-driven film with a box office life of Rs 20 crore.
I can take stress on myself but I don’t like it when stress comes to my husband or children.
I am a hands-on mother, so I take long gaps between films.
Parenting three children at the same time has helped me grow as a filmmaker. It taught me to be more empathetic and understand what people want from me.
Web series are the future.
For the audience, actors carry out specific roles of men and women through the character that they play out on screen. The director on the other hand is not doing a gender-specific job. So, it is irrelevant if the person who makes a particular film is a man or a woman.
Filmmaking is all about people management.
Everyone has flaws. We are only human after all. But what’s important is, we don’t let our flaws stand in the way of what we can achieve.
I never imagined myself making these big movies and being married and having kids.
In ‘Purab Aur Paschim,’ there’s one of the nicer patriotic scenes which is patriotic without going jingoistic. There’s a scene set in a rotating restaurant, where Pran, who has left India, is completely running India down and Manoj Kumar is taking up for India. And there’s that song ‘Jab Zero Diya.’
I have to be someone; maybe I’m just doing it for my father. When I made a movie, it had to be a hit because when he died, he was a flop director.
Giving birth to triplets at the age of forty-three is no walk in the park, but I had little choice. I got married at the young age of forty, and both my husband, Shirish, and I were keen to start a family soon.
When I make a movie, I don’t do any shows because the focus is completely on the film but when I take up a show, it’s an absolute relief!
I am happy judging shows and making films. It is a good thing to do a film and then take up a show, considering it also keeps your popularity alive.
You are only part of the film industry if you are doing well, let me tell you. You will be invited to parties and flowers will reach you on your birthday. When you are not doing well, you are really an outcast.
I always wanted to make cinema which will entertain the masses, cinema that could be called escapist but is mounted on a realistic scale with high production values.
I’m happy directing films. On television, the direction takes your entire life away.
Every person on Twitter is a critic. Every person who watches a movie will write a blog or a review. You can’t go out trying to impress these people.
I always say a film should be given breathing space.
In ‘Shirin Farhad’ I play the character of a Parsi woman. Though I was born a Parsi, in a Parsi family, I don’t have the right accent.
I don’t care for jewellery and fancy clothes.
My experience in Bollywood has been this: You work hard, you deliver, and nobody finds fault with you.
I’ve always been told that because of ‘Main Hoon Na,’ a lot of female filmmakers have come up but I maintain that direction is a ‘genderless’ job.
Shirin Farhad’ is a romantic tale of an unmarried couple who feel they can live together forever. Having crossed the marriageable age, what happens to them forms the crux of the story. The movie has several comic sequences with an emotional touch to it.
It takes two years to make a good film.
Women directors in India have mostly made niche films. Naturally, those films have a limited market.
At least in films you will go, you shoot for four to five months and then you can take a break. But I know how TV works… the directors are mindblowing, they work non-stop.
Later in life there should not be any regrets. Sometimes you have children too early and regret it, ‘If I wouldn’t have, my career would have been different’ and sometimes when you don’t have, you miss that opportunity.
Even with a big budget, you can make a niche film.
I don’t neglect my kids. They are my priority. They come on shoots.