My mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid.
When I went to university, I finally got exposed to European films, and they had a strong impact on me. I felt those films had a lot of things to say that weren't getting expressed in the films I was used to seeing.
At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films.
My role in 'Slumdog Millionaire' was a cameo, but it did expose me to cinema and took me to Cannes. I then did 'Prague,' which was a very niche film.
I was always interested in creative writing growing up. From junior high on, I was writing short stories. I also grew up watching movies. My father would take me to everything. Most weeks, I could open the paper having seen every movie listed.
I grew up on R-rated action films, and you didn't blink.
I think when I got drawn to film, I didn't know it was a business. I mean, like most filmmakers, I probably saw more films than a lot of people when I was a kid. But I watched them on TV as well. I was no purist about it. I spent lots of time in movie theaters, but I also watched a lot of films on TV.
When you work in film, you learn to appreciate a distributor. You can have this great little film, but if you don't have a distributor, you are sitting in your living room with a great little film.
You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?
I don't know what it was, maybe the movie theaters in my immediate surrounding neighbourhood in Burbank, but I never saw what would be considered A movies.
I didn't go to classes there, but ended up at the Cinematheque, and there it opened up even wider because there I saw a variety of films from all over the world.
I got into film school. I went and didn't know anything about it. Over the course of two years, I kind of got kind of good at it. You know, I had a brief moment where I wasn't sure if I could do it. I didn't know you needed light to expose film.
Sundance is just a great place for your work to be seen. Not much more to say about it than that.
I think I was shown Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas at seven or eight. That's really bad. I think I've turned out all right; it didn't harm me too much.
'Ranjhana' and 'Shamitabh' really gave me a wider exposure to Hindi-speaking audience.
This is unexposed film of Greenwich Village because nothing ever happens there.
I grew up in a big movie house, we watched movies all the time, so I had an awareness at a very young age that that was a job that you could have.
I mean, I didn't have a huge upbringing with movies, I guess.
Growing up, I didn't have a chance to watch a lot of films. It wasn't until my teen years that I had to chance to see the classic films.
What if a kid goes to school after seeing Kill Bill and starts slicing up other kids? You know, I'll take that chance! Violent films don't turn children into violent people. They may turn them into violent filmmakers but that's another matter altogether.
We didn't have a movie theatre until I was about nine, so I just didn't see them. But, once I got into movies I loved them.
I grew up looking at... going to the movies a lot, as much as they'd let you. I grew up in Manchester in the north of England in the '40s and '50s. I saw a lot of movies. They were all Hollywood and British movies. I didn't see a film that wasn't in English until I was 17 when I went to London to be a student.
Basically you want as many people as possible to see your movie.
I have done great characters in Malayalam, too. In that sense, there was nothing special about my acting as Ambedkar. But I am sure that this is a great venture, and I will get a lot of exposure in India and abroad. I have tried my best to do maximum justice to the character.
Even as a teenager, my sensibility was different because my parents introduced me to some amazing films. I grew up watching films like 'Kabuliwala,' 'Casablanca,' and 'Mandi.'
