If you'd come to me in 2012, when the last presidential election was raging and we were cooking up ever more complicated ways to monetize Facebook data, and told me that Russian agents in the Kremlin's employ would be buying Facebook ads to subvert American democracy, I'd have asked where your tin-foil hat was.
In truth, I am a single mother. But I don't feel alone at all in parenting my daughter. Krishna has a whole other side of her family who loves her, too. And so Krishna is parented by me, but also by her grandmother and aunts and cousins and uncles and friends.
When I worked as an assistant director in 2007, Indraganti Mohan Krishna offered me a lead role. Now, the same director has made me a villain in 'Gentleman.'
My journey with Krishna Vamsi had started with revenge and ended with love. When I went to Krishna Vamsi's office to work as an assistant director, I was sent out. Then I had thought they might one day need me.
Director Jai Krishna is an optimist who has a never-say-die attitude. He has impressed me thoroughly with his faith in the industry. Not many are aware of the fact that this man had to wait for almost 30 years in this industry to direct 'Vanmam,' his first film.
I view everything in the context of Lord Krishna's will, and for me, it is fine if things go in my favour or against.
If things happen for the good, I say that Lord Krishna wished it so, and if anything goes against me, even then I say Lord Krishna wanted it to happen that way.
Radha Krishna Sir, the director of 'Jil,' had seen 'Madras Cafe' and liked my acting in it. He wanted a performer and so got me on board.
When I came to the industry, many directors like Krishna Vamsi and Puri Jagannath had encouraged me a lot. Krishna Vamsi is my mentor, and I admire him. That's why I give chances to new directors.
Stanley Kubrick's '2001' was the door that opened up the possibility of science fiction for me. Everything else up to then was fine, but didn't quite work for me.
People would come to me and say, 'Jet, your Kung Fu is pretty good, do you want to be an action star when you grow up?' At 17, I was given the script and I went to make the movie.
My big fight is not in the movie and I don't understand that decision but I know he's right about it, whatever it is. Quentin did not hire me because I'm a kung fu expert; he hired me because he liked to listen to me talk.
I first visited Kurdistan in 2003. I arrived in the town of Sulaimaniyah, courtesy of smugglers who drove me across the border from Iran. Sulaimaniyah was a small, charming provincial Kurdish town.
Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.
My favorite Tyler Perry movie? Ugh, how can you decide? For me, it's basically like: Kurosawa, Tyler Perry, Martin Scorsese, in that order.
The movies that made me want to make movies were action movies, and thrillers, and Kurosawa films, you know, where you have an opportunity every day to shoot it in an unusual way. I was looking for something like that.
Music is really important to me; Kurt Cobain is important to me. Hearing Nirvana was pretty life-changing.
I was in Ann Arbor, and I was told that this singer-songwriter guy wanted to meet me. It was Kurt Cobain. Nirvana had just made 'Bleach.' Kurt interviewed me on a college radio station. It was very strange. He was a fan of mine, and he gave me his album.
I always thought it was strange when these artists like Kurt Cobain or whoever would get really famous and say, 'I don't understand why this is happening to me.' There is a mathematical formula to why you got famous. It isn't some magical thing that just started happening.
If I was 13 years old and Kurt Cobain tweeted me some advice or even just said hi, my whole world would be affected by that.
