We always work for money but when you do something for The Banyan, you feel so good.

If you ask a filmmaker to analyse his own film, it would take three or four years to do that, honestly. Because when you make a film, you have to be convinced about it. You are married to that film for a year.

When I made my first film, I was arrogant and over-confident.

Whenever I am abroad, I spend hours and hours at video stores. I look for classics from filmmakers from all over the world.

My films are as much for the people as they are for me. The reception affects me, but doesn't change me as a person. That's important.

Sometimes, I think filmmakers grab too much from real life.

Indian cinema will continue to grow, I am very sure.

Unfortunately scripts don't chase me. I chase them. I struggle, battle, discard, pick it back, struggle further, plead with it, curse it, cajole and try to be clever. But it is invariably the script that rules.

Language, I think, has nothing to do with film-making. It is how you make your point and whether you exploit the visual medium maintaining a certain standard that does the trick.

I am glad that we can make bold films, different films within the commercial market and still do well.

Let me be very frank. I make films keeping within the mainstream and my cinema is popular cinema. I love it this way.

A song is a burden that you carry happily.

Roja,' 'Bombay' and 'Dil Se' weren't planned as political films. It was a phase India was going through and these things affected me and found their way into my work.

Bilingual films come with a certain inbuilt practical problem with respect to the setting of the story and the dialect.

Mumbai is the most cosmopolitan city.

I liked Guru Dutt, the way he used songs and the way he shot songs. He was a class apart.

I grew up on the commercial film format. I have grown up all my life watching films and they have all been mainstream commercial cinema.

When I did my first film, I didn't have formal training; I didn't work under any director. I really didn't know how to make a film.

Censorship should never go. But we can always give a little more space to the director.

It is usually the setting that decides whether a movie can be made in two languages. If the subject is rooted up North, then I make it in Hindi. But if the subject is common, then I am open to making the movie in multiple languages.

When it comes to casting for movies, it is a priority that you cast right. The guiding principle must be what is right for the movie, that is the basis you cast someone, not because so-and-so is a friend.

I watch films, so I know what it is to be there in a theatre as the audience. So I always want to communicate with them when I make films, but that is not the only thing. I also want to say something which I feel deeply, and which I feel I can connect with the rest of the audience.

Movie criticism is very subjective and everyone has the right to voice their opinion. You go to a movie and decide whether you like it or not.

Actors are the most important. Performance is what matters. Nothing matters more than the actors; they have to perform. No one else can give life to the characters. Audiences must believe the characters as real and the moments as real.