'Big business' was a bad phrase in India. To be accused of being big business was the worst accusation you could make. All that has gone now. The whole mindset has changed.
One of the benefits for me of starting late in this business is I realised that if acting was the only thing I could do, I would struggle, so I always wrote as well.
For my first gig, I got $75. I could make money being funny, so I pursued it as a career and have turned it into a lucrative business.
My mother taught me about the power of inspiration and courage, and she did it with a strength and a passion that I wish could be bottled.
That was the fun of acting, being a blank canvas you could transform into the character - Indian princess, 20s vamp, Mother Courage, Oxford don, 94-year-old wife.
If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life - that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment - that would be the perfect state.
I could not agree more. The students of Delaware State often looked to the school as their chance, their hand up, their hope. And they gave their all.
The only thing that I could get with chance, and I never was able to use it, was that I would end up with something quite geometric or the spirit that I was interested in, indulging in, was gone.
With acting, I've always gotten by in life acting in situations. I'm a small person. I didn't have a chance to be a bully. But I could always act myself out of tough situations.
Whenever I see something that looks like it could be good - whether it's on vinyl, CD or cassette - if it's not too expensive, I'll take a chance.
I would like to do a musical, if I could find a cool one. A song-and-dance role is closer to me personally than other characters I play.
When I realized that if I was an actor, I could be any character I wanted instead of just one particular, I was like, 'Wow, that's cool.'
It's really hard for actors to cross over and get any respect as a singer, and if I could just keep it separate and not use my music in movies, it's cool.
I'm grateful to look the way I do. However, if I could change anything, I would like to be a bit bigger all over. Not much - just a bit.
What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.
I like to write scenes in the middle of the night. We could change every word of 'Family Ties' between Monday and Friday.
I have long felt that it is readers and viewers of conservative media who could benefit from a more balanced discussion of what is at stake in our policy and the actions of our government.
I never would have believed as a candidate for the U.S. Senate that the U.S. government could buy GM without a hearing, with no vote, yes or no. There are billions and billions of dollars at stake here.
If it were not for government regulation of big corporations, executives at companies like Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, they could have cheated investors out of millions.
The lands granted were in the occupancy of savages and situated in a wilderness, of which the government had never taken possession, and of which it could not with its own citizens ever have taken possession.
I didn't think being a writer was a fancy thing. It was a job like any other job, except apparently you could do it at home.
