Mira Nair
I want to question what the outside is and who defines it. I often find those that are considered to be on the outside extremely inspiring.
I know what it's like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it's like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis.
I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. They teach us how to see the world in that sense. They are without artifice; they see it for what it is. I am drawn to that ruthless honesty.
I grew up in a very small town which is remote even by Indian standards. I always dreamed of the world.
They say now in America that final cut doesn't mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, 'You can have final cut. I'll open your film in Arkansas.'
I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.
It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching.
Truth is more peculiar than fiction. Life is really a startling place.
'Salaam Bombay' didn't put a halo on the poor. Instead, it said that they will teach us how to live.
I am still attracted to stories about people who are considered to be on the outside of society. I still seek inspiration from those stories.
I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world.
I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.
In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.
My films, no one else will do.
Middle-class Pakistani cultural life is what I've seen, what I know - they're not all screaming faceless mullahs. It's disturbing that in American films, the character on the other side is not even named.
I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.
Humility is not a trait I often associate with America.
Never take no for answer, and try to make films that turn you on.
For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films.
Marriage of attraction is a gamble anyway, so you might as well marry into a family that is similar to your own, and make that much less of an adjustment. But the 'love marriage', as it is called, is equally common in India now. But it would be interesting to do a comparison of what would work better. Marriage is hard work, and it is a gamble.
Americans are not used to being bombed in their beds, but if you come from anywhere outside America, it's not highly unusual.
I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work.
In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it.
It took me three years to learn to dress in the American way, especially in winter. That was just like me. I barely wear socks even now.
We have three generations at home, including my father-in-law. I keep a very low profile, and a lot of things I do are very much with the family in mind. I have actually made films with the family around me.
I think there's a level of ignorance, when, in the callowness of youth, you imagine that you are inventing the world for the first time. You imagine that your parents don't know what it feels like to fall in love.
Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.
I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.
I came from the school of cinema verite documentaries, which was: Do not manipulate reality as it was happening but create a narrative in the editing room.
There's nothing universal about Indian families except that the family itself is deeply important across the country. It's sort of the fabric and anchor of our country.
I've been able to look at the world differently from three continents practically. I've always lived between India and the U.S. When I married Mahmood I became a daughter-in-law of Africa. That really changed my worldview. I can see it from so many perspectives.
I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power - like, you know, running the country. Which is a thought that continues to give Americans indigestion... Direction is about having a vision, but the practice of being a director is a con game - a confidence game.
Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game.
Truth is much stranger than fiction and, often, much more powerful.
You have to want to be in the company of those you're making films about.
New York City is home to so many people from so many places and the uniqueness of it is that you never feel a foreigner. English is almost hardly ever heard in the subway. In fact, it's weird.
Once 9/11 happened, people who looked like me and whose children looked like us and whose husbands looked of a community, really were made to feel quite the other, and I thought that was impossible in a city like New York but I myself was witness to that.
You've got to understand that in Bollywood, every actor is an instrument, and yet a human being. They come to the set with a set agenda, believing, 'This is who I am, this is what I want, and no, I am not going to become that character you want me to.'
Bollywood actors are so set in what they want, and the way they want it. And why shouldn't they be? But it is not the same in Hollywood, because the love of the audience is not the same.
What's nice about what we have is when you enter the set, the world of film, it becomes this real cocoon, very different from all the publicity. That's the fun part.
I am at home in many cultures. I live actively in three continents and I've done that for most of my life, so I just make films as I see the world, and that happens to speak to people. I do things that I want to do.
I think films have to reach people and really grab them. That's what I hope to do when I make a film - to get under your skin and really make you think about something, and have a transporting time that takes you somewhere.
We never see the fancy schools with the blazers and ties in films about Africa! But, in fact, we too have class and elitism.
It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.Collection: Strong
What is really important to me is a sense of humour and a mischief about life. Life is just too boring otherwise.Collection: Important
I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.Collection: Done