The one person whom I would like to be is Meryl Streep. Even at her age, she sits alongside the younger heroines at the Oscars with her name in the nominee list, and others around her wonder whether they still stand a chance.
Up until the age of 12, I went to dog shows every weekend. Mum showed beagles. It's a really competitive and eclectic world filled with characters who wear interesting outfits - similar to 'Toddlers & Tiaras,' but with dogs.
I didn't grow up in a regular upbringing. I ended up at my grandmother's house past a certain age, so I took care of things myself. I moved out of home when I was 16.
My father came to Chennai at the age of 16 from a village in Coimbatore. He was an artist and was clear he wanted to do something, so he came to Chennai and joined an art course for eight years before he came into films.
This idea that being youthful is the only thing that's beautiful or attractive simply isn't true. I don't want to be an 'ageless beauty.' I want to be a woman who is the best I can be at my age.
Puberty was not kind to me. I had acne, eczema and had a stye in my eye, so it was quite hard to go in to somewhere where the majority were boys. At that age, they were quite vocal about what they thought of your looks.
Although becoming a singer was my plan A after first hearing Whitney Houston when I was 17, I started off with plan B by going to the teacher-training college that my dad went to. It was a slow coming of age.
Every age sort of has its own history. History is really the stories that we retell to ourselves to make them relevant to every age. So we put our own values and our own spin on it.
I think you have to be a little bit strict. You can't be friend and their parent in a lot of situations, especially in this day and age where it's so dangerous for kids. So there's a bit of sternness, I guess, in the way I raise my kids.
I studied technique for ten years, from age 7 to 17. I guess you could say I went more on the Stanislavski side than the Meisner side - there's always that wide divide among actors when it comes to technique.
With Storytelling, at least, it's explicit: this is what the censors say American citizens, no matter what age, are not permitted to see, even though it can be seen by other people all over the world. I suppose you could call it a political statement...
I'd say James Dean is someone that's really inspired me. Just the fact that he did only three movies before he died at such a young age, and yet everyone knows who he is. It really blows my mind.
The name 'Wiz' comes from me being the youngest dude in my age group of people that I hung out with. I was pretty good at anything I tried to do, so they would call me a young wiz.
I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel.
You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the chara...
They say you don't want to meet your heroes, but those two guys, you do want to meet them, because they do not disappoint. Walken has this amazing sense of humor, and Pacino is like just a sweetheart of a guy.
I don't get a chance to do many of my own stunts on 'Buffy' - none of us do. We have amazing stunt people who make us all look really believable and really good.
They say it's good but I didn't know what I was doing until I got into the suit and they put the moustache on me, and somehow, when I got all the drag on, it came out. It was the most amazing thing. I'm truly extraordinary.
It's amazing how these little guys can say things that a mortal human could never get away with. There's some sort of unspoken license... when outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor.
You can be the best actor in the world, but if you don't have that one lucky moment, it kind of doesn't matter. There are a lot of amazing actors who will never get the chance to prove themselves because they won't have that one lucky moment.
I think Damien Hirst is hilarious. And I think he's a true artist. He's not hilarious first; I think he is a real artist, and I also think he's got an amazing sense of humor.
