When I began making films, they were just movies: 'What's the new movie? What are you doing?' Now they're called 'adult dramas.'
I, for one, personally like rom-coms, silly rom-coms, but at the same time, I also want to watch a documentary or an award-winning drama.
In the '90s movies were so serious, and so stylistic and slick that I could not identify with them.
There are very few movies in English about romantic obsession told with a seriousness of purpose.
The thing about 'Spectre' is that it is not the work of hack writers. It does not have a hack director. The actors are not hams.
What I like are films that take me seriously, that don't treat me as more stupid than I am.
There is no such thing as serious cinema in India.
I think it's important for anyone who takes cinema seriously not to limit yourself to just optimistic or happy movies. I think that's a problem. You've got to be willing to let the art of cinema take you into some darker places if you're going to make full use of it.
I was lucky to land up in Mumbai when serious cinema was just beginning to flower.
We have filmmakers who make films with some kind of responsibility and take cinema seriously like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Prakash Jha. But now these people also take stars... Without stars they cannot work.
