My mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid.
At a very young age I was allowed to go into the cinema and watch adult films.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
This is unexposed film of Greenwich Village because nothing ever happens there.
I didn't see many films until I was in college teaching.
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.
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.
Basically you want as many people as possible to see your movie.
Getting into Sundance is such a big platform for a director.
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.
