I'm very pragmatic in that I know there are very few greats in anything. I got lucky just to have gotten two of the real great filmmakers very early on. Better to have had them than to not have had them. I've been really fortunate. That's the key relationship on a movie: the director and the actor. Of course, you can't compare the experiences. When you're in your early 20s, you're a very different person. It was a very exciting time, and my whole world was changing. Now I'm looking back, and hoping I can still offer something. Still do good work.
I want to work with great filmmakers and great actors and get better as an actor.
I'm very fortunate to have the privilege of working with directors like Bill Condon and Paul Thomas Anderson, who I think is one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.
I feel lucky to be able to work with such great filmmakers on such wonderful stories.
I think great filmmakers will always talk in terms of storytelling. These guys were always about the story. That is how I love to talk about a film.
I don't think you can figure this stuff out. If you could figure all this stuff out, then all the great filmmakers would come out of Yale and Harvard. It's not an intellectual process.
I am blessed that I have worked with great filmmakers and, in that process, I have learned a lot. Be it Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Ali Abbas Zafar, Ashim Ahluwalia or Nagesh Kukunoor, they have all taught me something new.
I find it remarkable. It's surreal for me that I've gotten to work with so many people who are not only great filmmakers but whose films have had such a direct effect on me.
If you look at anybody who's had along career, if you look at the choices they've made - even if the movies haven't worked - they've always worked with great filmmakers.
