I don't have a horror film in me just because I don't like to be scared. But I definitely have a documentary in me, and I certainly have dramas.
When I made 'Hard Boiled,' I had no idea that it would be released to an international audience. I just wanted to make a film to team up my two favorite actors, Tony Leung and Chow Yun-Fat.
One thing that I think works in 'Casablanca' and which I've lectured a lot about - in terms of what I've been trying to achieve as a designer - is the film's creation of its own form of reality.
For all its flaws, 'The Hands of Orlac' really is a seminal film, and if you're partial to that particular B-movie subgenre of Demon Body Parts, you really ought to see it.
As an actor, I'm my own worst critic, but after awhile, really, when you watch 'Moonrise Kingdom', it's such a fantastic film that you sort of get sucked into the story, and then you kind of forget about everything else.
I am capable of holding the quote-unquote 'title' of leading man. Leading man just means people want to see you and assume that you can hold a film, carry a movie.
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 King and Queen made the rounds after the film. We were told how we were to respond, and we were in a semi circle in the lounge area of the cinema, they came around after the King, the Queen and both Princesses.
'Ek Main Aur Ek Tu' was a very special film for me. Imran and we complement each other very well. He is sugar, and I am spice.
I find it quite difficult on studio films because there are so many different executives and things like that that you have to go through, so very often getting that definitive opinion is actually quite difficult.
I started acting when I was 13 in New York. Worked there for a couple years, then auditioned for a show there that was going to be filming here. Ended up coming out, getting the job and just staying.
Filming 'The Road to Riches' was surprisingly difficult for me. I learned that going back to career successes and failures can be emotionally exhausting as you are forced to revisit the euphoric highs and painful lows in high speed.
The stigma that used to exist many years ago, that actors from film don't do television, seems to have disappeared. That camera doesn't know it's a TV camera... or even a streaming camera. It's just a camera.
When you're a young actor you like to go for characters with a bit of flair, so in many films I ended up playing the weirdos. I can assure you I'm not a psycho or a criminal or a bully.
The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.
It's a morality film, and it poses the question 'What would you do?' I took it very seriously, just as the director did in terms of atmosphere and lighting, and I was just trying to help that vision along.
I met Roger Ebert at an independent-film awards or something. And he said, 'When I saw you just now, I wanted to punch you in the face. And then I had to remember you're an actor. So, congratulations!' Those are my accolades.
I think the record industry, by and large what's left of it, is still totally homophobic. I think it's much less so in the film industry now, but the record industry, it's always been a man's world.
My feeling is, I do a lot of low-budget films. I don't do low-budget acting. I have no interest in just goofballing my way through, thinking, 'Ah, no one's ever going to see this anyway.'
I look at the film as an opportunity to see some bountifully creative minds do something that I could not do - tell the story with images. I can't wait to see what they do.
In silent films, quite complex plots are built around action, setting, and the actors' gestures and facial expressions, with a very few storyboards to nail down specific plot points.
