I watched a lot of old movies. Clint Eastwood movies, a lot of John Wayne films, a lot of movies that celebrated the region of where I lived.
With acting, you can find a way to make it interesting for yourself, if nobody else - even on big-budget films. But you're very much on your own.
I started to have these ideas for films. They were like running images in my head. But I didn't think I could be a director. I just literally didn't think it was a possibility. Then I started to suddenly see films of women.
I am not against two-heroine films.
I experimented with different roles, but they didn't work, despite being fantastic films like 'Naa Autograph,' 'Sambo Siva Sambo,' 'Neninthe'... etc. I was very satisfied doing those roles. Had those films worked for me, I perhaps would not have tried anything different further. I like to experiment once in a while if it works.
With all my films, the pace is not very fast, and so people get bored with them and comment that they're just people talking in rooms and all that.
The physical journey in my films is indicative of the internal journey that my characters take.
Look, I'm no purist - there are good superhero films, and there are bad ones.
I think men under pressure - I mean, that's what brings out the worst and the best of us. I like to explore that quite a bit in my characters because I don't see a lot of it on the screen that moved me like the films that I grew up with - that are honest, at least, about honest emotions and honest heroism.
I haven't had the egomaniac star yet in any of my films. It's always been a pleasure.
Usually, when I see films that don't have any score attached to them, I think they're beautiful. I love just the naked sound of the voice. That's already music.
It's nice to always have been able to remain consistent. I'm very thankful for that and to work on shows that I can be proud of, and films.
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.'
The problem with a lot of narrative films is that they're not real enough.
My films are like clouds: their meaning keeps changing every minute.
I want to do more films because if you do a lot of films, you become a better actor.
We found the appetite for 'Frontline' has only grown as the digital landscape has exploded. The appetite for the reporting we do on our digital platforms to the short films we're doing for our Facebook and YouTube channels. And we're still producing these remarkable long-form films.
Everyone out here in Los Angeles is trying to do whatever to break into films. It is a tough industry to get into, kind of like pro wrestling in a lot of respects when you think about it.
I get asked, 'How can you have such failures in your films?' Well, what else is life about? There's some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it.
I do love doing films; I love going out and creating different characters for each film, and not having to be stuck with one role for many, many years. It's a creative liberty that I love.
I don't see my singing for films as a transition from singing my own songs because I see it as part of the same picture.
Bottom line is, off-beat film or commercial films, Tollywood or Bollywood, it's the role that matters to me.
It's a real gift to work with my sister. We obviously have such a shorthand communicating with each other that it makes the process easier. And from growing up together and watching so many films together, we ended up with pretty similar taste.
Personally, I think 'Dead Americans' is the best title I have, but you can't win with everyone. Titles have to be short, catchy, not too obscure, not offensive, and still capture the genre, and so on and so forth. Takeshi Kitano has it about right when he says he'd just like to title his films by number.
My films are always looked at strangely, and there is nothing I can do about it.
To make films, you have to have boundless energy; you have to work and play with others really, really well, and I'm really a more contemplative kind of person. I like to sit at home and think, a lot.
I was raised in a family where cinema was a way of life. It was not only about making films, it was relationship, passion, love, everything at the same time.
I'd love to do action-y types of films; you know, as long as they're good stories.
The more you create, the more ambitious you become with your projects. Short films were a direct result of over 200 web series sketches and vlogs. After you create enough 2-minute videos, you start to wonder what else there is. Deadlines and discipline and quantity with a focus on quality have always been what keeps me going.
I don't try to sanction other people's joy in monsters. I mean, I think the fact is, humor, fantasy - you know, like fear, desire or laughter - create genres of their own: comedy, melodrama, or erotic films or horror films... The boundaries cannot be defined. It's to each his own.
I love Bollywood films, but I have been trained in independent cinema.
We met and married when both of us knew exactly what our jobs were. He was only 32, but he'd been all over the place. I'd been working on films and television shows all over the world.
The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.
It's so nice that there's all this new space for new, good content. It's good news for us actors, since nobody makes real independent films anymore.
I'm going to end up making twenty films if people let me.
I think we have a responsibility to shape the zeitgeist with the movies we put out there. Because 'After Earth' isn't going to do it. 'The Expendables 3' isn't going to do it. You could make one million amazing films for the amount of money they spend on those films. I get frustrated.
