Mira Nair Quotes

I still want to do features, but on my own terms.

I don't necessarily love all the collaborations that I've done; the more I work with other people, the more I realize that I want to work with myself.

When I get to make a movie, I really try to make it on my own terms.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be subservient to anyone else's vision.

Very few artists are as independent as I am mentally, physically, spiritually and technically. I sit in my home studio and record things by myself. I don't need to get anybody's approval or validation.

I'm not interested so much in collaboration. You see that from the history of my albums.

I don't work to any commissions. I do what I want to do.

I do love being solo because I can have more of my own creative input to every aspect of my career.

It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.

It's a huge responsibility being a solo act.

I've been wanting to produce for some time because I want to have more creative control over the things that I do and not be victim to the whims of other people's desires.

I didn't want to just be an artist and let someone else have all that control over me. I knew I would have to produce.

When I was doing something on someone else's dime, I was inclined to try to anticipate what they wanted. I knew that wasn't what an artist was supposed to do. In funding my own music, I found my voice.

Yes, I worked hard to put together an experimental show on a budget of zero. But I was not being exploited by anyone. I was in charge.

As an independent artist, you control the means of production, which is the ultimate form of empowerment.

Within the Universal deal, we've always felt like an independent act. We've never been told what to do. We've used their resources to our own design.

What I hate in movies is all those people you need. And then I realize I do better when I shoot by myself.

I'm not going to wait on anybody to put out music or a visual. Everything I will do is on my own. I'm not waiting on anyone.

My music has always been my solo project.

My best business decision was to be independent as a musician and artist. My worst was compromising on certain aspects of a deal for the sake of other members of my group when I shouldn't have, because I was right in the end.

I always thought that if record companies didn't understand me, fine - I'd go and do it by myself.

The joy about the recording is that you are your own boss. You don't have a director telling you how to do it.

Sometimes being an actor is being a song in someone else's mixtape, so I really understand why more and more actors are making films of their own.

To the extent that independent means you're willing to attempt to put your own ideas, personality, and commitment to the material on screen, then of course I hope I'm independent until the day I die.

If I'm going to go out to be a solo artist, it's because I want to do something different without having to wait on someone else's schedule or hobbies or be limited by other people's prejudices. I'd be kind of stupid not to exercise that.