For me, directing a film is like confining myself. I want to do something beyond direction. I can conceive stories, write screenplays, etc. That's better for me.
Right from my childhood, I have believed in a Supreme Power. I don't know whether it has form, or it is formless. I am a high school dropout. How come life has given me so much? It's not my intelligence, it's not my abilities. This understanding makes me scared even in success. I don't own my success. Neither do I own my failure.
Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.
History and social sciences were my interests. I was always interested in knowing how societies get organized, why there is rich and poor divide, why there are classes. I was never apolitical. I think we are all political in a way. Politics decides our day-to-day life.
I never wanted to become an actor. I always wanted to be a farmer and dreamt of owning half an acre of agriculture land.
If I do not respond to some situation, my conscience kills me. I believe in permissible violence, not necessarily non-violence.
Indian cinema needs all ingredients like emotion, action, sentiment and humour; it's not easy. It's easy to make a Hollywood film, as it goes with a pattern. Our cinema needs a lot of commercial ingredients. That's why I don't do many films.
There is a latent talent in everyone. I am nothing extraordinary just because I happen to be an actor. Everybody is extraordinary in his own way. One must identify one's own talent early on - one is not great merely when he gets recognized by others - and one doesn't become a nobody just because his talent is not widely known.
As a public personality, I keep things related to my children and partner to myself. They are private matters.
Politics organizes our lives. We can't disregard it. Politics has lot of muck, lot of dirt. But that doesn't mean you have to be away from it. It's ubiquitous.
I don't believe in planning for things. I just want them to fall in place, unfold as they like. I never design things. I want films to choose me; I don't choose films.
Nature, philosophy and social issues are the three things that always occupy my mind. You do not have any power over others but can only change yourself.