As an artist, there's so many categories that you're put into, that there are so many things that I'm about that I've never explored as an artist on film. I don't see myself in so many characters in film.
I'd never really considered film. If I'd thought about film more growing up, I probably would have changed my name. I had no concept of my name in lights.
When I started acting, there were parts in English that I thought I just had to try it out and go to another country. I did a film in Ireland. It was my first film abroad.
In films of terror, it's often not about being graphic. Or if there is a graphic image, it's extremely swift. Everyone talks about the shower scene in 'Psycho,' but that's the only graphic scene in the entire film.
Well, I am from India and I wanted to make films in English for the international market in India. So that was really the main thing, and then of course economically it was cheaper to make films in India.
I find the stuff that is exciting to me are the films coming out of Taiwan and Iran and France. So I have the feeling I'm not making the films that American distributors want to make.
I don't feel comfortable with violence, and I'm not sure that I film violent scenes properly, and it's something I'm reticent to do, and yet violence is sort of in all of my films.
There is a broad cultural current that conveys the idea that a film is like a football team, it represents a nation, it is illustrated literature, filmed radio. These are outdated concepts, totally out of touch with today's realities.
'W.' is not necessarily a political film, but it was sort of a contrasting reality for me to get into George W. Bush as a character because of how I felt about his administration before I started making the film.
I was excited that my films would finally see the light of day and people would see them. But I never imagined that such nice things would be said about a lot of my films.
I think ultimately audience members like to see someone controlling the quality of a film. A lot of films you see are made by committees and studios and producers.
I'd rather make an interesting film that gets people talking, that maybe some people hate, than make the kind of 'entertaining' film that everyone feels ambivalent about.
My films have a bold interpretation. They are unapologetic about showing intimacy. Going by the number of people who come to watch my films, this is what our target audience yearns for.
We didn't really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week.
Filmmakers who use narrators pay a price for taking the easy way: narrated films date far more quickly than films without narrators.
The key fact missed most often by social scientists utilizing documentary films for data, is this: documentary films are not found or reported things; they're made things.
As much as I'm enjoying stuff out here in Hollywood, I will always think of myself as a comic-book writer who does film and television, not a film and TV writer who occasionally does comics.
In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there's so much that's against you on a film set.
When you make documentaries or short films, you have to have eyes and ears in the back of your head and on the sides and all around you. I like that in my films.
I like making black and white films in natural surroundings, but I much prefer shooting a color film inside a studio where the colors are easier to control.
It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.
