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I just think I started off like many composers, just in different fields of music I was doing. I started doing a lot of commercials and jingles, and then that led to doing TV and then films and games and TV.
They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies... the medium doesn't matter, so long as it inspires you.
How my film career happened, I don't know. It was unplanned. I'd been in films and TV throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, but it was really 'The Naked Civil Servant' in 1975 that put me on the radar.
I turned down 'American Gigolo.' There are many films - like 'Ghostbusters' - that I turned down... The first one I did was 'Foul Play' with Goldie Hawn, but I turned down 'Animal House' - I turned that down.
What people adore about superhero movies is the signal quality of the Christopher Nolan films - their complete lack of irony when it comes to the portrayal of heroism and the need for heroes to confront evil.
A financial shift happened with 'Facing the Giants' and 'Fireproof,' where movies that were faith-based films were profitable. And people in Hollywood - like people in downtown U.S.A. - are out to make money.
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.
Here I was, having done a thriller and a horror movie - why did I have the audacity to make a romantic fantasy? How can I continue to make genre films? Well, maybe I don't want to continue to make genre films.
My father is my idol, and I have grown up watching his films. He is my biggest influence and inspiration. I have learnt a lot from him, and I am who I am because of him. I'm extremely grateful to him for that.
When the producers of 'Why Poverty?' came to me to do a film about poverty in the United States, I asked if I could do a film about wealth instead. I tend to make films about perpetrators, rather than victims.
You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.
I loved going to superhero films growing up - you come home, and you pretend to be those people, and it ends up informing much of what you aspire to be. And that's what I will say is important about the genre.
My friend once sculpted me a bust of Admiral Ackbar from 'Star Wars.' He's my favourite character in the films after Han Solo. He's that goldfish-type alien in the white costume. 'It's a trap!' I'm a big geek.
After the release of 'Ashta Chemm,' several producers and directors came with similar roles in their films. But I doesn't want to do stereo type roles and do something different for each film, and refused them.
In most films - especially in regards to the protagonist - really from the get-go they set up some scenario that endears that character to the audience. Or imbues him with some nobility or heroism or something.
I don't talk about films even after I sign them because between the signing and the shooting, anything can happen. I am not superstitious, it's just that I don't like talking about a film that is not completed.
What has helped me is my success in commercial cinema. It has given me a platform for others to cast me in their films. If I did not have the commercial success, then I wouldn't be able to do the smaller films.
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 can remember the moment when I suddenly felt that the camera was a living partner. I suddenly felt this is art, and the camera is a co-operative living person. After that I was extremely happy to act in films.
I have been very selective in the South because I was always offered the biggest films. In Bollywood, things are different because multi-starrers are a norm. All big heroines are happy to be part of a big movie.
I think that people who make films and think they're changing the world are sorely mistaken. If that really is your goal, there are far better ways to do it. I'm making politically observant films for audiences.
A lot of more modern films seem to just be out for violence or sex or what have you, without relating it to what's going within human beings. But every now and then one comes along that does that, and it's a joy.
The person that made me want to make movies, and the reason I do films, is Bruce Lee. He was an incredible actor, and he had a lot of charisma. Handsome, action, you know, everything was there. I loved Bruce Lee.
I did four independent films during the break between 'Twilight' and 'New Moon.' I haven't even really had time to sit back and process it all. But when you do finally sit back and think about it, it's incredible.
It was a wonderful experience working with Nagarjuna sir. I mean, I never expected this to happen. For me, who watched his films standing in a queue at theatres, and now sharing the screen with him is a huge thing.
I'd like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don't have misconceptions - they understand. I believe that.
I've done scenes in films that I felt like the performance was better in certain takes, but they couldn't use them because it didn't match what the person was doing when they came around and the camera was on them.
I'm not ashamed of any work I do. You can't decide a film's fate before its release. There's no surety that your new films will be better or worse than your previous ones. You can only hope to surpass your efforts.
I think, in life, we want to surround ourselves with people who make us think and question ourselves, and those are the types of films I want to do and the types of characters that I hope I get to continue to play.
I want to make a film that is commercially successful because that means that the larger cinema-going audience around the world like the movie, which is my goal. That's my job, to make films that people respond to.
I was doing specialisation in advertising. I had no interest in acting. One of my friends, who was doing specialisation in films, made a short film casting me. Luckily, I got a break, and my acting career took off.
If the Beatles made England swing for the young, then Bond was a travel-poster boy for the earmuff brigade. The Bond films even put a few theme songs, such as Paul McCartney's 'Live and Let Die,' on the pop charts.
For me and my films, I want my audience to experience cinema in its full glory. It's not just visual, it's audio as well. It's emotional, and I want you to be engaged with not just the scene but with the characters.
With a lot of films, people are sitting on the outside looking in, but I want the audience to get a bit more intimately involved with what's going on, so that they maybe can experience it a little bit more intensely.
Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
I usually take up short films when I am not tied up with feature films. Short films are easier to work on... because it doesn't take much of your time. The number of shoot days are lesser as compared to feature films.
Sam Peckinpah's movies probably say more about him than anybody's body of work says about that person. There are running themes in his films that I find eminently fascinating, disturbing, exhausting, and exhilarating.
I don't hate L.A., but I'm nervous about becoming one of those people who has a ferocious interest in how films did at the box office that weekend and, you know, would want to meet for egg-white omelets in the morning.
I think the people who probably have it the best are the people on cable like on 'Entourage', 'the Sopranos', etc. who have 13 episodes per season and breaks to do films and theatre. I think that's the most ideal life.
I want to play a role of a 24-year-old woman, not 17-year-old girls. So I have picked a couple of films like 'Butter' to show that. And it's perfectly fine not to do anything for a year if I don't find the right thing.
When women get great roles in life, they start to get great roles in films and TV. Look at Janet Reno, Madeleine Albright, and Mrs. Thatcher. Because those images are coming at us in life, they are reflected in acting.
Hollywood has done some of these films, and some of them are ginormous biblical movies, but you can tell the people making these are not invested in the truth of what those stories are biblically. It shows in the work.
I think feature films sell on the idea, and I think TV works based almost entirely on execution. I don't think anybody is going, 'Wow, that show is executed poorly, but the idea is so cool I just have to keep watching.'
Japanese women have always loved my films, even when no one else did. Ever since I made 'Maurice' in the 1980s, I've been getting hundreds of letter from Japanese girls. They definitely have a special place in my heart.
My father came to Chennai at the age of 16 from a village in Coimbatore. He was an artist and was clear he wanted to do something, so he came to Chennai and joined an art course for eight years before he came into films.
I have an older brother and sister, and I'm definitely ahead of my years in terms of sci-fi and films. My brother is a massive sci-fi fan, and the Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver era... I was involved and interested.
Japanese horror films take the business of being frightening seriously. There is no attempt at postmodernism or humour. They are incredibly melancholy, with a strong emotional core, while remaining absolutely terrifying.
Since I was inexperienced in films, I thought it would be very intimidating to work with experienced people like Sanjay Suri and Samir Soni. But I must say they are very encouraging. They clapped when I gave a good shot.
A spine to my films that's become more evident to me is that many are about the choices people make, and the reverberations of those choices. You go this way, or that way, and either way, there's going to be consequences.
My parents were never into films, but I hope to make them proud with my work some day. In any case, in Bollywood, your surname matters only till your first, second, or third film at most. Beyond that, you are on your own.