I find in film acting that however many years you have done it for, you can feel totally relaxed and at ease with the people around you, absolutely wonderful, then roll camera and a little part of you goes, 'Ugh'. It is learning how to manage that.
I'm not trying to take anything away from film acting, because it's also really hard, and I worship the people who are great at it. But to actually have to go out on stage night after night and do it with your audience right there is so wild and scary and exciting and fun and all the things that I remember loving about it.
I don't have any plans to pursue film acting. It's not my thing anymore, if it ever was. Yes, I do still act sometimes. But when I do, it's with people I know and trust, people who respect me as a person and appreciate what I have to offer.
Television and film acting is really fun because you are working with other people and you are not completely responsible for the outcome of the project.
People on series are now given a lot more opportunities, sometimes more than film actors.
Many people say that theatre has no money, but it has been the stepping stone for the best film actors of our times like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, etc.
Soap operas are like boot camps for film actors, so I really learned a lot. It was a masterclass in working for camera. I made myself watch myself every day. I would sort of try and be objective about it and critique myself a little. There's a lot more skill set than people realize in soap operas. They shoot, like, 35 scenes a day.
Some people do stage and film. Some people are film actors, and some people are stage actors. I'm quite sure that any of the actors who did the original production of 'August' could have done the film of 'August.' I don't think any of them were particularly surprised when they didn't wind up doing the film.
I wonder: Would there be a black president if people hadn't already begun imagining, through film and television, that a black man is president? It's self-actualization.
The impact that movies, film, and TV have on me - the way that they can toy with my emotions - is beautiful, and I've always wanted to do that for other people.
People ask me about fighting in real life and, honestly, it wouldn't look as graceful as it does in film and TV.
On so many levels, acting in film and TV is so much the sum of its parts, and somewhere in there, there's an alchemical thing that makes something happen or not - that makes something connect or not. Now, of course you want to make work that people see, but the enjoyment I get out of acting is playing characters.
I don't think people realize what it's like for people of color to audition for film and TV.
We get the impression through film and TV that Americans are violent gangsters with guns or upper-middle-class people in romcoms. I really liked the people. They were really warm. They could have been Brits. I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I've made a point of trying not to play the same part, and of moving between theatre and film and TV. The idea is that by the time you come back, you have been away for a year and people have forgotten you. If you like having time off, which I do, that's a good career strategy.
I've made a point of trying not to play the same part and of moving between theatre and film and TV. The idea is that by the time you come back, you have been away for a year, and people have forgotten you. If you like having time off, which I do, that's a good career strategy. Or at least, it's my strategy to keep my head together.
In film business or any business, for that matter, there are people with different mindsets. Some would be compassionate and respectful, some might just be the womaniser, but how can we generalise that? That is wrong, I guess... That way, in a male-dominating society, shining is tough for women.
As a woman, absolutely, I have had to deal with people making advances at me, but not just people from the business of film industry but people across different professions and different strata. I think it has a lot to do with power; it is not only limited to the film business.
I am bowled over by the massive number of remarkable people who face down the fact that no, they are not going to be film directors, famous artists, or billionaire entrepreneurs and still come out the other side as cheerful, decent, gracious human beings.
There needs to be more film directors of colour. They bandy about the word 'diversity' a lot, but when I say 'of colour,' I mean Asian, black - I mean people of all colour. We need to have those voices given the opportunity, not told that their films will not be distributed or will not sell well abroad.
