Acting is no longer a taboo. The stigma has gone because people have realised that it's a perfectly valid career choice.

When I was 14 and went on the stage for the first time, it stimulated me so much that I was convinced that I didn't want to do anything else.

I'm not a political person; I'm not an activist. I'm not a guy with strong beliefs about anything. I have nothing to say to the world.

I don't think anybody becomes an actor to serve theatre or to serve art anywhere. We all become actors because we are insecure people who want to be looked at. That was the reason I became an actor.

Learning a craft is up to you, whether you are doing theatre or movies.

A family business in cinema is not necessarily creative. It is generally about prolonging your family fortune.

I was never turned down because I was a Muslim. I was turned down because I was not right for the part.

Hindi cinema has only one religion, and that's money.

I'm not trying to prove myself a great filmmaker. I don't know much about filmmaking anyway. I'm trying my hand at it to see if I'm any good.

It is very tough to make a short film. It's like writing a short story, which is tougher than writing a novel. You can't afford to faff around; you can't indulge. You have to get to the point.

Everyone equates good cinema with boring shots and boring films - where a character takes 10 minutes to walk down a corridor, and still nothing happens at the end of the shot. Those films tried to be cool and fashionable by dispensing with drama, which, in my opinion, is absolute nonsense.

You can't make a film for your personal satisfaction. That is why I detest the cinema of people like Mani Kaul.

A lot of scripts are written with an eye on what will be popular or what will titillate or what this actor can do well. I don't think those kinds of scripts ever work.

When my bank balance runs low, then I sign a big Bollywood monstrous movie, and I make sure that I am safe for the next few years.

To me, the most important elements in a theatre are the actors and the texts.

The stuff that is done on Broadway is hardly theatre. It is part magic show, part rock concert, and part conjuring things.

There is no such thing as serious cinema in India.

I do what work I get. I'm disappointed half the time.

As an actor, you have got to learn your job as thoroughly as you can. If you know your job, then there's nothing that can stop you. Because the bottom line is that only good actors will get work.

There are a lot of people in my family who should have become actors.

I realise that I have made quite a few of the same mistakes with my kids that my dad made: not so much in trying to determine their lives for them but in terms of trying to discipline them.

My relationship with my father still troubles me because it never got resolved, and there was no closure. There was a lot of bitterness, but having written about it, I found that I was able to overcome that bitterness and look at the relationship anew.

There's so much hocus-pocus about acting styles; there's too much mysticism attached to it. But it's a craft like any other - it's something you have to work hard at.

The ballooning budgets of Bollywood are getting out of hand, and it's important for people to realise that you don't need Rs 20 crore to make a good, commercially viable film.