My father, George, has also affected the choices in my life regarding films. I like films that take chances or say something different or experiment. Growing up with him, I was surrounded by different artists - not just actors or film-makers but cart...
You make a lot of films, do you? You make a lot of films yourself? Yeah, I'd like to see you make a film first before you get to talk about it. What a jerk.
For me, the challenge of a period film is that, unlike a contemporary film where the character can be very free-form when it comes to the acting, there's a burden to acting in a period film because you have to stay within the character's historical b...
I think that, back in the day, there used to be a lot of horror films that kind of had a checklist of what went into making the 'perfect horror film', and I think now people are raising the bar in the industry, as far as the types of horror films tha...
'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'
I make a film - and once I've made it, everyone comes along and says 'Ah! This is a film that's political, or social' , or whatever. But I'm not telling the story that they see. I made a film, told a story, but I wasn't thinking about exactly what it...
See, a painting is much cheaper than making a film. And photography is, you know, way cheap. So if I get an idea for a film, there are many ways to get it together and go realise that film. There's really nothing to be afraid of.
When I went to film school about three years ago, the first two years you're required to make a series of short films. I started making films based on short poems.
People talk about the difference between working on stage and working on film. I think you could say that there are as many differences between working on low budget films and working on big budget films. You really are doing the same thing, but at t...
If you look at film, distribution is pre-bought. If you've paid for the distribution, you say, 'I have to make sure it's a film that gets enough butts in the seats.' I think that's the problem: It becomes prohibitively expensive, and you can't develo...
If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn't come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that's where the stimuli and influence comes from.
I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.
Here's the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it's put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don't call them a white film. I'm trying to remove the stigma off things...
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.
The stakes are high on every film now because there's the opening weekend. The first week is extremely crucial; increasingly, films are being judged in terms of opening day, opening weekend, then first week. People are going berserk promoting their f...
You don't have to do offbeat films to prove that you can act. I have done it but only to prove myself that I can fit convincingly into every kind of films. I want to do the 100 crore film where the hero does all the work, and I get to relax.
When I see films like 'Lagaan' and 'Rang De Basanti,' I feel, 'Why can't I do work like this?' Then you think and realise you need to learn more to make this kind of a film or write this kind of a film. Also, somewhere down the line, you need to be b...
I did not want 'Battleship' to be perceived as an American war film. I wanted to do everything I could to make the film accessible to a global audience. It felt like bringing an alien component to the film would help take the American jingoism out of...
I loved 'Junebug.' It was one of my favorite films, my favorite type of film.
I watch mostly independent films.
'Saawariya' was my debut film. It will always be the most special film.
