I want to play roles where my absence should be felt. It may not necessarily be a lead role, but my character should be crucial to the show.

I played the lead in 'Kutumb,' my debut serial. But after that if I had been stubborn asking for lead roles, just a few shows would have come my way.

If something interesting comes in terms of lead roles, I am game for it.

When I joined 'Kumkum,' I was excited because the character had grey shades.

I went into 'Bigg Boss' because I wanted to experience what it was like. It was more disorienting than I had bargained for. I began to forget the names of people in my life. It got scary.

When my wife Gauri visited the 'Bigg Boss' house, I can't tell you how overjoyed I was to see her. The level of isolation in that house hit me hard when I saw her there.

Swayamvar' is one of the most anticipated and sought after shows on television and I am elated to be a part of it.

Besides 'Mahabharat,' I am also acting in two serials - 'Karam Apnaa Apnaa' and 'Kyunki.' Three serials at one time mean I won't have time for anything else.

Like they say, boss is always right. In case of marriage, wife is always right.

With cinema it's a different ballgame, you really don't know how the audience will react, so one has to tread carefully.

I worked in 'Ghar Ek Mandir,' 'Kaahin Kissi Roz' and 'Kabhi Sauten Kabhi Saheli,' but it was 'Kutumb' which was the turning point.

I used to work for 14 to 15 hours. But since I have got married, Gauri is very strict that I should get home by 10 P. M.

For films, like my serials, I am looking for roles that help me evolve in the character.

Men do not delve deep into things like women do.

I heckled somebody at the U.S. Open once. And you know, tennis, it's not a good place for that.

I got a horror film, 'The Burning,' and suddenly I was making crazy money, like a thousand a week, so I moved into an apartment on Amsterdam with a guy who was also in 'The Burning,' Jason Alexander.

With 'Broadcast News,' it became a non-issue, and with 'The Piano,' it became a non-issue. Both parts were written for more statuesque women. It was nice to change people's minds about that, because that's neither here nor there.

I was born and raised on a farm, where boys had chores and girls did not, i.e., drive tractors, bale hay, take care of cattle.

I'm not a classically beautiful person, but hopefully it increases my longevity as an actress that my career isn't dependent on my great, great good looks.

In many parts, I start from the outside and then it triggers things within. For 'The Piano,' I went, 'I'm going to learn these piano pieces. I'm going to learn this sign language, and I'm going to do them all day every day, five days a week.' It was a totally physical thing.

I believe that there is good. I believe there is evil. Do I believe that they come from God who is watching us conduct myriad never-ending wars and looks benignly on because there's higher purpose to all of this? I don't think so.

I'm a practicing Catholic. And faith is very, very important to me. It was pounded in my head as a kid, and I hated it. And I sort of lost my way in my 20s and part of my 30s and then found my way back. And I don't know what I'd do without it. It's huge in my life.

Being somebody who's like a theater geek that I am, I can just go right back to Aeschylus and Euripides and Sophocles: they were writing about gods and goddesses versus humans, and how gods could distort, pervert, or help people get what they want.

The self-help section of national bookstore chains in America is one of the largest sections. In a way, it's nothing new, and in another way, very new. People have always searched for answers; that's why we have religion. People have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.

There's no way that anyone can know the ebb and flow of one's career. You can't know that. You can tell young actors it's going to be very difficult, but there's no way you can understand the difficulties and the rewards through description. You have to cellularly experience it.

It's considered a coup to become a lead on a kind of cutting-edge television series. I mean, that's a plus for your feature film career and for your career in general. There are no walls anymore between the two.

It's great to go to the cinema and have a conversation about something that is almost taboo.

This is one of the reasons I like to act - it's because acting forces you into situations you don't know.

So much European cinema has open arms to stories carried by women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. And America is a little behind in that.

I moved to the city in August of 1980, and someone I thought was a friend had an apartment in this wedding cake of a building, so I slept on her couch for a few days.

I love to look at physically beautiful people, and obviously others do, too. But there's such a narrow definition of what that is; the people who are my friends in life, the more I get to know them over the years, the more beautiful they are to me.

Mothers and daughters can stay very connected during teenage years. In the middle of your life, you can become very alone. Even though you're connected deeply to other family members, lovers, husbands, friends.

I'm from Oklahoma City, and there's a statue across from the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building of Jesus. It's called 'Jesus Wept.' And I love this statue because it's a statue of Jesus with his head in his hand. And his sadness and his pain at some of the choices that are made here - that just breaks his heart.

If you've had intimacy in your life, you can be intimate onscreen. I mean, come on - I didn't know how to hold a gun, but I could play a cop.

I'm not a media personality, I'm an actress. I want to protect that thing: the suspension of disbelief. The rest of it is just distraction.

I don't suffer the decisions the studio world makes.

What does it mean to believe rather than to know? To surrender to something that's not fact but faith?

I had such total, unequivocal, enthusiastic encouragement to be an actress. Looking back, I really find that to be a total mystery. Don't ask me why. My father was just in love with the idea that I would be an actress.

The whole idea of death is something that we tend to kind of really not deal with at all.

I love fiction, you know? I find it fascinating. So when film really does go into fictional places, that's the most exciting for me. And when the fiction is about the person rather than about the place, that's even more exciting.

With longevity comes, 'Nothing is going to kill me; I cannot irreparably damage my career.' Those days are over. The most I can sustain are fender benders.

I've never had a career of that kind of box office power. I've always learned the hard way.

For every movie that you go see, how many leading male roles are there in any given movie, and how many leading female roles are there? There may be 5 or 6 really good roles for guys and maybe one for a woman. And it doesn't even matter if you're 25. That's just the logistics.

The unknown makes people uncomfortable.

There are ways that women absorb situations, and I think women are different kinds of listeners. They're different in terms of how they parse out problem solving.

You can tell young actors it's going to be very difficult, but there's no way you can understand the difficulties and the rewards through description. You have to cellularly experience it. It's a very difficult career in the long run, but at the same time, there's no long-haul career I'd rather be involved with.

The happiest person in the world has struggled. And none of us are perfect. And people can judge. There's so much judgment going on. And I just don't think that's what God's about.

I heckled somebody at the U.S. Open once.

It's the same with people knowing absolutely everything there is to know about an actor. I actually think the more personal information you have about an actor, the more you have to carve out for yourself when you go to a movie and see them in it.

I guess I'm more of a direct person than an indirect one.