Jon Batiste Quotes

I'd say that the director I had most involvement with was Alex Rockwell in 'In the Soup'. It was one of my earliest leading roles, and he gave me a lot of responsibility as an actor.

I would love to work with the Coen brothers and Terrence Malick. I love both of their bodies of work so much, so I'm really interested in acting under their direction.

An actor is only a part of the film, not the whole, and very often, he is moulded by the director. That is why a good director can make so much difference to a film.

I've certainly worked with really great directors who haven't acted.

I do whatever the directors and writers ask me to do.

I think every time you take on a new role, you're trying to help find that voice and you add your own bits and pieces along the way but with Noah [Baumbach] it's already done.

Working with the kind of talent that I've gotten to work with, like the cast of Sin City, it makes me think probably more fully dimensionally about what is going on behind their eyes. But I draw the way I draw, and ain't nothing gonna change that. Although, I draw Marv and I think, "Boy, I could throw a little Mickey [Rourke] in there."

When I'm in the studio, I write the music, I play the different instruments, I produce it, I arrange it, and it's a self-indulgent exercise. It's the way I make my music. And when I'm acting, I get to leave myself behind, which is a relief. I get to collaborate with a director; I respect the director's medium and all the actors and actresses. So at the end of the day, it's about a character and it's about a director's vision. It's a really good balance for being so intense and alone in my personal process of making music.

Thanks to Cheran, I play a city girl in 'Mayakkannadi.' I appear in trendy costumes and have more scope to perform.

There is no hard and fast rule that I only work with debutants. I give prime importance to script, and when that works out, everything else falls in place automatically. In fact, most debutants express interest to work with me.

Well, I'm really interested in the idea of making genre films, but movies have a much more personal undercurrent to them and that look beautiful, and that's sort of the films I'm kind of interested in making.

I remember I did a character in 'Robocop' years ago - Commander Cash. I wore this really ridiculous outfit, and my face was covered. You couldn't recognize me in the suit; you could only hear my voice.

When you play a daily soap character that character lives with you for a really long time.

I was really excited when films like 'Kaala Paani,' 'Maachis,' 'Chandni Bar' and others came my way. The sheer fact that I would get to portray various emotions was thrilling.

That's the best way to work on a project: talk to the director. In the end, it's the director's idea of how they perceive the movie and how they perceive the characters.

Mohan Raja is an interesting filmmaker. He is constantly, if I may use the word, contradicting himself. He explains a scene, and then he will try to break that and rebuild it. That, to me, is filmmaking. Every scene is constructed after a lot of discussions.

Wayne was coming out of a session as Mickey for 'Totally Minnie.' We met in the hallway. We just blended really well.

I would say I was not working in the real sense in 'Paiyaa.' After doing very heavy scenes in my first two films, in 'Paiya,' I was romancing a girl, talking all sorts of funny things, and doing all light things just as if I were not acting!

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

As Laurel Van Ness it's so much fun, and with that comes a creative outlet. You can be who you wanna be and be that particular character. I'm so thankful that Impact allows me to do that.

I love to watch entertaining films with larger than life characters and hence enjoy making such kind of movies.

It's always about the project itself than a character for me. It's all experiential.

For me, it doesn't matter what kind of role I am doing. I just enjoy the process of acting and filmmaking.

I don't just look at things as an actor. I've also written several films, so I look at it as a storyteller and I know if something worked and should have been in there for the benefit of the story and the benefit of the character.

Being a director it's mean - digging deep in yourself as well. I think the deeper I understood the material and the script and the themes and the characters, I felt the more confident I was and the more I could bring to the movie. So I was lucky to have my actors because they were right there with me in the deep end.