Let's not betray cinema with marketing inside the film. If it's done outside, then it's ok. That is essential to integrity.

The city helped open my mind creatively and culturally. Pune has the power to make you realise your dream.

If you make a good film, then there's no harm if it achieves commercial success.

You have to be truthful and believable in whatever you do and that is the founding principle of acting.

I returned to Pune in the 90s to do my MBA from the University of Pune as in that period there were not many MBA institutes in the city!

I don't play roles, I play characters. There is a vast difference between the two.

Yes, I am extremely choosy. You decide whether to do a film or not only after you meet and talk to the film-maker. Only someone who thinks out of the box excites me.

I like to promote my work. I do the promotion for my work because that is required. Apart from that I just don't know how to promote myself, to be honest, I think my work ideally should speak for itself.

I believe religion is a branch of spirituality, often misinterpreted and twisted to suit people's ideas. In truth, religion and spirituality are meant to co-exist happily.

I have lived life on my own terms.

Content films necessary don't go by the content, they go by the emotions. Content films are about content whether you want to portray the content or sell it through humour, through seriousness, is a choice of the filmmaker.

Every human being has a plethora of emotions. As an actor, we are lucky to take them out and portray onscreen. But in normal life you can't do that. That is the charm of leading an actor's life.

Acting is a symbiotic process, it is an amalgamation of many many things put together and when there is a call for action, that's when you surrender and the moment of truth comes out, that's when you perform. That is the process for every good actor.

The paradox of perfection is that you should try and achieve it by doing quality work even though you know you can never achieve it.

If you don't have integrity, don't be in cinema.

Be honest and accept it if you do not have talent. And if you do, hone your skills.

I don't bother about awards.

I can't pretend to do something I don't like.

I like to be by myself, probably because I have been a single child.

I sift through the scripts offered to me and see what is worth attempting, because I think there is no point in wasting your time in doing something which you are not too keen on. I try and do whatever I feel interested in.

Preparing for roles sounds so academic, doesn't it? It feels as if you are preparing for an examination! In a creative medium, the preparation is of an entirely different kind, and for me, the ideas flow from the script itself.

I was born in Kerala, where my maternal grandparents lived, and stayed there till the age of one, after which I came to Maharashtra to live with my parents and moved all around the state with my father, who worked as a superintendent in an ordnance factory.

I don't have the expertise in that department, I seriously lack the skill to market myself.

We are a jingoistic nation - whether it is politics or films or whatever. We can posthumously shower praises and accolades on people, but when they are alive, we don't bother about them. A classic case is Om Puri.