'Baahubali' is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.
I'd love to do a comedic film. I'd love to do a very epic Shakespearian film.
During the late '50s, I had worked on the script of Ben-Hur in an office next to that of the producer Sam Zimbalist.
I was doing 'Twin Peaks,' and Columbia called and said they wanted me to do 'Gladiator.' I thought it had the potential to be a real commercial film, so I was like a kid in a candy store.
I will die trying to do another 'Baahubali' kind of film. It's not a film that can be easily replicated. I believe only Rajamouli has the experience and vision to handle projects on such scale.
Lawrence of Arabia is the ultimate movie, deeply cinematic.
'Braveheart' is one of my favorite movies, and to be part of an epic sprawling period film is on my bucket list: something with some grandeur to it, a really awesome score, something that's just kind of moving, you know.
Where do I begin with 'The Godfather?' It's like explaining why the 'Bible' is so popular. I'll always remember seeing the first one because it was the only time I went to the movies with my grandfather.
CROUCHING TIGER is nevertheless a gloriously big epic, starring the Hong Kong action stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh in a visionary adventure where the characters seem set free from the force of gravity.
One of my great all-time loves in cinema, and I've seen it three times, is Bondarchuk's 'War and Peace.' Not a lot of people may have seen that film. It was made during the Soviet era.
'Lincoln' is a powerful film. It's one of those epic films that talk about this very specific issue in history of the United States.
I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.
'Mayabazar' was the film I immensely loved as a kid. Only when I became a filmmaker about 20 years later did I realise its technical marvel and what a great epic it was. I and my visual effects supervisor, while making 'Yamadonga,' took two days to understand the magnification shot of Ghatothkatcha's persona.
If you love epic space opera, you shouldn't miss 'Interstellar'.
In order to make a great, epic movie, you have to have the four Bs - babes, bullets, blood and blades.
'Baahubali' team is not after numbers. If we would have been number guys, we would have never made a film with such a huge budget. We just wanted to make the biggest war film of this country, but what it has achieved is amazing.
The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was 'Ben Hur'.
'Marmayogi' has a budget of Rs 110 crore, and I think only a gifted person like Kamal Haasan can do justice to such a film.
You see in Once Upon a Time in the West the whole film moves around her [Claudia Cardinale]. If you take her out, there's no more film. She's the central motor of the entire happening.
When I was coming onto 'Thrones,' I was looking for, 'What's the formula here?' There was a very David Lean kind of approach to it. It was traditional, in a way, and it was naturalistic in some respects, even though it was fantasy.
An epic is the easiest kind of picture to make badly.
I never met Peter O'Toole, but he one was of those rare actors whose success was defined by a single role. His incandescent performance in David Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia' is one that nobody who saw it will ever forget.
Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in America' is a brilliant movie. It's about four hours long, but it's so well done.
Fortunately or unfortunately, 'Baahubali' has become a benchmark for all historical-costume dramas.
