Dia Mirza Quotes

Once you become a producer, you're really selling something. It is a control issue, because you don't really know how it's going to pan out, but the creative control makes it work it.

If I was going to do anything, I'd be a producer, only because I'd like to have a say in what gets made and what doesn't.

There is an isolated experience to being a director. It's very communal because there's a crew, but it's only you. You're the one on the hook.

I do a lot of decision making before each shoot. It's a luxury to be able to choose what you do.

As a producer you have creative control, and that's what is so exciting about it. At the end of the day, if you have made a film it's totally your responsibility, and if it works it's your responsibility and if it doesn't it's also your responsibility.

If I start a film of my own, then what I eliminate is acting in other people's movies. Because once I start, and I go raise the money, it's about two and a half or three years, and I can't stop. I have people hired. I can't say, 'Ooh there's a good part called 'Drive'; I'll see you in three months.'

There is a director for a reason, because a director knows what's best for the movie. You just give your director as much as you can to work with, and hopefully, the decisions they make are going to be great.

As a showrunner, you can never be a 'maybe.' When I do movies, there is a lot of, 'Maybe' and, 'Let's investigate that.' But for TV, it has to be yes or no.

As an actor, I was often shielded from the big-picture decisions. But as a producer, I experience all the conversations where there's pushback or a difference of opinion.

It's really empowering when, as an artist, you can visualize something and then have the final product turn out the way you wanted it to.

I need to have a great deal of control and the ability to share my control with my collaborators and grant them the freedom and the quality of work I think these people deserve. If I don't have those elements, I walk away.

I don't have much power to make many films, but I do have the power in what roles I choose.

The most fun about working with special effects is that you have to really rely on your imagination to build the scene. You can't actually see how what you're doing will fit in ultimately and you look silly while doing it but when you see the finished product it becomes something amazing!

One big lesson I learned from movie [making] was I don't do creative projects that I headline unless I have all the control. I can't deal with having to live with other people's screw ups, and that's just sort of the way the movie business works. The people with the money are in charge. Until I'm in charge, I don't want to play that game.

Everyone will always have ideas about how to make your work better. Everyone has advice about how to end your play differently. Start it differently. And it's not about right or wrong. At the end of the day, it's your baby, and you know what's best.

The move to turn a director was a very important decision and totally uncalled for, especially after my experience of 27 years as a producer.

Let film-makers take a call about what films they want to do.

I'm writing, I'm directing, I'm editing, I'm mixing, I'm showrunning. There is a certain point where it's like, the work is the work.

I prefer to be a director and a narrator rather than a writer.

As a director, people are trusting you with their lives, with their stories.

There's no way I see myself as a director. Direction is far too creative.

Obviously spending my teenage years in music, and in popular music, I wanted to continue this career, but in a way that allows me to dictate it and create it myself as opposed to relying on third party or more corporate decision making.

Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity.

It is easier to make a film but difficult to make it on your own terms. In that sense 'Madras Cafe' was a very satisfying experience.

I do a film only when I feel I will be comfortable with the set-up and other members of the team.