I only get involved with projects as a producer if I feel creatively inspired.
It was a really strange and unique sort of process for me to adapt my own book.
To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if I can write it; otherwise, I won't want to.
People sometimes think that a video pops out of my head with no more work than extracting a booger. Every video is a challenge (an exciting one, sure, but a challenge.) Every collaboration is complicated.
It's intimidating any time to have a piece of art that someone else created, and that person says, 'Let's see what you created based on what I created.'
The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.
Writing a nonfiction story is like cracking a safe. It seems impossible at the beginning, but once you're in, you're in.
The comedies are not a million laughs on the set. Its business and the dramas are business as well, really. When I'm writing it I struggle more with drama because I started out in comedy.
The directing is something that is incredibly satisfying to me and challenging to me because it's asking me to draw on everything I've been able to absorb over all these years of acting and having all this set experience.
I definitely think independent film is very exciting, and you get to sometimes take bigger risks. So that's always a challenge and something that I look forward to.
It's always an interesting challenge to see if you can create a character that's got emotion.
Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.
When I was on that boat, I realized the only way I would feel creatively challenged was if I totally changed everything about my environment and put myself in a storm, in a sense.
The challenge of a revival is how to bring something fresh. The reward is the opportunity to add different flourishes. You're dealing with different actors, designers and a different time.
When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so.
I have always tried to put content in my work. It is a consistent challenge.
How stupid do you have to be to imagine that you can turn 'The Lord Of The Rings' into a film script?
Film is not as exhilarating, not as physically, mentally, or spiritually challenging, as theatre.
When I'm stuck for a closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.
Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.
I was very focused when I wanted to make 'Dil Chahta Hai,' though it was difficult for me to convince people that I know how to make films and I will be able to direct and put a film together.
It's really fun to go back and forth from acting projects to directing projects. You don't have as much responsibility when you're acting, but you have more fun. But then you miss having that responsibility, and so you go back and torture yourself and make a movie.
I said, other people can write songs, let's see if I can. So the first 400 or 500 wound up on the floor somewhere. Then I wrote one called Melissa.
I don't care about the image I have. What matters to me is that with every film, I am growing more and more as an actor, pushing and challenging myself.
After 'Superstar,' I was encouraged. I felt audiences wanted to be challenged.
