Sanjay Leela Bhansali Quotes

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.

Dhobi Ghat' is the only script I actually completed and that I was convinced about wanting to direct.

It's probably not an accident that the films that I care about happen to be about issues that matter to me, stories that I want to tell.

My greatest dream is to make a film on 'The Fountainhead,' which I have been restraining from doing because it is so much in the mind, and I am yet to be able to decode that.

I feel Prawaal Raman is an amazing director with great films in his pocket like 'Gayab.'

There are definitely directors I want to work with like Dibakar Banerji, Zoya Akhtar, Vishal Bharadwaj, and so many more.

No film ever ends up exactly as you would like it to, but with minor exceptions, THX came out pretty much as I had visualized it, thanks to some excellent assistance -- and a whole lot of luck.

When I'm acting, I wish I was out there, being a part of it and making it. It's all on your name to do that. It's your vision. You're going to get slandered for your work, and I like that. As an actor, it's so hard. I'd rather direct than act.

People will say, 'There are a million ways to shoot a scene,' but I don't think so. I think there are two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.

I've wanted to direct for a long time, but it had to be a story I wanted to tell. The writer's job is to find the story that he should tell.

I make films, and I hope that people come to see them. If they don't, I pay a big price. But I can't make decisions where I would change my own standards or my own taste in order to court the public in some way.

I think making a film is as much knowing what you don't like as what you do like, and avoiding the things that you don't like like the plague and making sure that they never appear onscreen in any shape or form.

I've always preferred being behind the camera.

The nature of filmmaking is that there are so many people involved in it, so many fingers in the pie, that part of the talent of a director is to try and get your personality through in the movie.

I started out with V Shantaram. But my favourite director has been Gulzar, with whom I did intelligent cinema in movies like 'Khushboo,' 'Kinara' and 'Parichay.'

I am extremely proud that our cinema is being recognised in the West. I want Indian cinema to get its dignity, not by giving them the kind of films they expect from us, but by making cinema in a way that carries the legacy of the mainstream masters forward.

Every filmmaker has his own vision, and when they write a film or characters, they see certain people in those characters.

I can work with both the old, revered filmmakers and new directors. It is amazing how they see me in their world, and then I adapt accordingly.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra is the only man I see around who makes films because he thinks 'this is a story that needs to be told, so let's tell it.'

Somebody has to make good artistic films. Somebody has to break open the doors so that others also will follow and make good and meaningful films.

It's not, 'I'll do this and make lots of money, and I'll be a star.' It's more, 'I know what art I want to make.'

Bollywood is such a space where you get to work with so many genres. Genres being pushed isn't the way of looking at it. In fact, I think Indie needs to be given a lot more focus or recognition.

I love directing, It means so much to me to direct stories about subject matter that I care deeply about. I can act in many things, and you can try to experience different characters, but to direct is years of your life and you have to really love it and believe in it.

They[ Lana and Andy Wachowski]are true artists. They really are trying to say something and trying to create something original, and there aren't that many people who do that.

The great artists are those who impose their personal vision upon humanity.