I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles.
In the film business, when you're young, you just want to work. But when you're older, it has more to do with who's involved with the project - who you're going to get in the boat with.
Most of the film directors expect their actors to want to work fast.
To be able to work with people who I have respected and admired, to be a part of something like the Cannes Film Festival, is surreal and brilliant.
You know, with the film industry crews, there's an odd mix between a very technical and a very artistic approach to the work, and sometimes as a woman you have to be a little bit careful about how things come out because people don't really want to listen if it's in a certain emotional tone or too strong.
I guess people feel that if you're working with good directors and are known in the Hindi film industry, then you won't work in South films. However, I believe that films have no boundaries of language, religion, or cast. If it's a good script and a good director, I can do a film in Spanish as well.
Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Film noir can't just play off looks and attitudes. A thriller needs a dose of genuine suspense. It does not have to be literal, but it does have to feel genuine. Otherwise the artist is just leeching off the form.
I think I've always wanted to direct, but I didn't go to film school. I was lucky enough to work in movies, and I think those became my film school in terms of acting and watching directors work and also writing and co-writing and producing.
I don't want to be an art-house movie guy, where people who go to film school can discuss your work, but people who haven't studied cinema can't appreciate it. By the same token, I don't want to be the guy who's making this commercial pap that people lap up but that disappears the minute you leave the theater.
I think a film set is a quite controlled environment and you feel like you can trust them and it is going to be a safe place to work, but I really don't think about it.
A film set is really delicate and people treat you very very well if you're an actor because they want you to be as comfortable as possible for you to do your work, but it really is just one in a team of many and usually 150 people.
I've been on a lot of film sets, and I've always promised myself I wouldn't create a set where people dread coming to work.
Directing is more what I would like to get into eventually. Frankly, I feel like it would be a waste if I didn't because I've spent so much time on film sets, and I know how they work, and I love them, and I love leading them. I would like to do that as a director definitely.
I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's a negative drag on film sets after the second week or so, a mutinous vibe because the infinite capacities of the directors and everybody else become quite finite and everybody's under the gun and it becomes work.
When you work in film sets, when you're working on projects that are male dominated, you are always treated as the last priority.
Film sets are a strange place, but an exciting place. I do love my work; I really enjoy going to work. But if you just spend all your time on film sets or even on stage, you can become a Michael Jackson figure, living in your own little universe.
Harrison Ford was pretty content as a carpenter who thought it would be nice to work on TV and ended up being the biggest film star in the history of cinema.
I am happy film stars are singing in their films. I hope to work as a music director for a film where actors will sing all the songs.
I look up and go, 'I'm living in the world I visualized a long time ago.' From making movies, to the Film Society, to just being in a film world. It's a life that I wanted to inhabit. I think everyone has the opportunity to do that in this world - it's just, are you gonna work for it, and how much does it mean to you?
At least I know that one film-maker in my career has had the initiative to come to me and thought of me as being capable of doing interesting and complicated work, and so I have a new-found belief that other film-makers will see me in a different way, the way that Patty did.
