My choice of films has never been governed by money. That is perhaps why I don't have a very fancy bank account. I'd rather get respect and creative satisfaction through my work than just earn money.
But I feel that I have a responsibility to help the film and I have relations with the studio and with those who put up the money so that I can tell a story that I believe in.
'La Lupe' is my passion project. I've done it as a one-woman show, but I'm raising money to turn it into a film. It's a story of a Cuban singer who became the Queen of Latin Soul, the first woman on the N.Y. salsa scene.
My criteria for doing theater has always been slightly different than my criteria with movies, in that there are a lot of reasons to do films, having to do with location, money, and first and foremost having to do with script and role and director.
I'm a bit of a shopaholic. I've been working in the Bollywood film industry since I was 17, and I have always been financially independent, but I think I would be useless looking after my own money.
Show me a Scorsese film, and I'll show you a movie where he's taken risks. It's just his nature. He's an artist, and artists take risks. He always does what he believes in.
Except here it's more power, more energy, younger and also in Europe it's still not only entertainment. Theater or films are looked at as a moral institution. That's why maybe they're so poetic. Here it's clear entertainment.
The poetry and transgression that was so much of surrealism's anarchic force has been recruited into mainstream culture. It has been made commonplace by television and magazine merchandising, by computer games and Internet visuals, by film and MTV, b...
I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're mould...
I've done five films directed by women. I did like it. They had qualities, particularly in the romantic tenderness of scenes. I felt sometimes they were a little bit soft, but maybe they were clever to get the guys working the way they wanted them to...
They all matter to me, whether I'm working on a Sam Jackson film for a week or I'm the star of my own TV series - I take it all very seriously, and I have a healthy respect for the work in general, despite the role.
Shooting a film is like a kismet quest. You have thirty days and you need magic to happen. So that's why I wear suits. I'm praying to the gods, and I'm doing everything I can to respect the powers of the world.
A film has to be for commercial success as well as earn you respect as an artist. You don't want to do only things that are designed to run commercially, and neither do you want to do things that get acclaim but don't run.
So it's kind of nervous to be in this situation, but at the same time you look at all those actors and the work that they've done, I've been in bigger films than all of them and still kept my integrity and still kept my respect.
After I tasted success with erotic thrillers, a time came when I was being offered only films belonging to that genre. The industry loves repeating a success formula, and the audience had formed a certain image of mine in their minds.
Box office success has never meant anything. I couldn't get a film made if I paid for it myself. So I'm not 'box office' and never have been, and that's never entered into my kind of mind set.
I guess in the independent market, I'd be getting offers, but in terms of big studio films, I still have to audition. I don't think my name is that well-known, I don't have much of a following to guarantee box office success yet.
I was brought to Hollywood by Gene Roddenberry and Michael Eisner, chosen from 600 hopefuls to star in the original 'Star Trek' motion picture. The success of the film, coupled with the allure that I had shaved my head for the role, put a spotlight o...
The story of 'Highway' is completely about travel. It is about the fascination of travel to an extent that I don't want to even reach the destination and also being away from society gives you a certain view of the society, so that was the intention ...
I've done a lot of films that are purely live-action roles, and even if I hadn't come across performance capture as a technology, I think I'd always consider myself a sort of mercurial actor.
I feel like theatre gives me the grounding, and keeps me alive, basically. Film gives me the thrill, and it's like a one night stand. But I do enjoy being around people who love it so much.
