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 feel like movies are presents, and credits and fonts are bows and wrapping paper. I like everything to feel like it was given a lot of time. I hate it when I watch movies, and it seems like they just went and picked a font and, like, called it a day.

I'm always interested in relationships between women. I'm always interested in how women relate to each other, whether it's a family relationship or it's a friend relationship. That's such uncharted territory in cinema.

I don't really decide what the core of the story is before I write. I write to figure out what the story is. And I think the characters end up talking to you and telling you what they want to be doing and what is important to them. So in some ways, your job is to listen as much as it is to write.

There's a style in modern dance right now called Release Technique. It's based on a feeling of falling and catching yourself, and I thought it was such a good metaphor for the way life feels.

I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

When you're writing a screenplay, it's like you're dreaming the film for yourself again and again and again until it becomes almost like a memory before you make it.

Everybody is always in the middle of their own opera.

You only get one life, so you might as well feel all the feelings.

I loved the idea of dramatic art of storytelling as a way to make sense of things. It's really what I love and what I care about.

The more particular you make something, the more universal it becomes.

I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.

I loved 'Moonlight.' I thought it was really beautiful. Really great.

There's nothing more thrilling than watching great actors say things that you wrote and bring them to life.

Books and theater were the way I understood the world and also the way I organized my sense of morality, of how to live a good life.

I have a flexible body.

There are massive camps in Bollywood. I never belonged to any camps, but I think it was a wrong move. I should have had. It affects your career. It's one big family.

I try to make my wife happy, but I know my efforts aren't enough.

I am thankful to my audience, parents, and the media who have supported me over the years.

Jaipur is the hometown of my religious guruji. It has a special place in my heart, and I have been here several times.

Romantic scenes are a part of Bollywood cinema, and if the script demands some kind of intimacy, I have no issues with my daughter doing those scenes.

My mother was my world.

I tried working with the best of directors and producers. I tried being selective, but things didn't work out. Now, I am open to working with anybody and everybody who is good. Or I'll try to make it good. That suits me.

I want to do quality work in both cinema and politics.