Quotes

Even as a kid, classmates asked pointed personal questions about my family. I have conditioned myself to handle it with maturity.

I always wanted my work to speak for itself but I realized you have to show people a little bit of yourself and interact with them, especially before your film releases.

I can be lazy, don't get me wrong. But it's not laziness that's holding me back, it's the system where I don't fit in.

The kind of stories I like often comes from debutant directors.

As long as it excites me, I am game for it.

Love has no nationality for me. I have a preference for dark skin but that's just superficial.

In real life I don't chant. Nor do I believe in idol worship.

Larger-than-life roles have never excited me. I'd rather play someone real who goes through obstacles and becomes a hero.

After 'Socha Na Tha' flopped, nobody wanted to work with me. I became very bitter and angry. So now when the industry and the audience accept me, I feel more empowered.

I may or may not get married but I will settle down in a live-in.

I believe there are two kinds of journalists. One who sells a story by being creative, and one who sells a story by being sensationalist.

If you perceive someone to be stylish then even if they are shabbily dressed you would consider that as a new style statement.

I did get a reputation for being choosy and not very easy to be approached, and none of that is true. It is not that I am not approachable, it is just that I am trying to find myself and establish who I am as an artist.

I don't think I am fearless. I am just me.

With my social media posts on fairness creams, I felt really strongly that I needed to speak up about it because I think we can take baby steps. Colour and caste is engrained in our culture, but I don't think it should be applauded or packaged and sold.

I always try to do middle-of-the-road cinema.

If I look at Dad's earlier work - 'Bandini,' 'Satyakam,' 'Chupke Chupke,' 'Jeevan Mrityu' - and then his later work, I realize that when something works, the industry doesn't want you to do anything else. They just typecast and milk you.

If I want to do song and dance, I will and I would like to but I don't want to do it in every film. Where is the novelty then? It just takes the fun out of work for me.

We are always larger than life because we come from this mentality that since we are a very poor nation, we need an escapist cinema to take us out of our miseries. And that's where Bollywood comes from.

It harms me when people say I am 'non-mainstream' or 'non-commercial' actor. I try to fight off such labels.

It is not a happy time when a film doesn't do well... Everything affects you, success affects you and failure also affects you.

If we are not affected by our environment, then we have somewhere become insensitive. It might be good in a way because you might not be affected by anything and be calm always.

The thing about action films is that they are high on drama in terms of action sequences, have songs and other things, but content is secondary.

I realized that I need to protect my films because the director will move on, the producer will move on too, but as an actor I will be considered a flop if things will not work.

'Basra' is high on content, but a good dose of action sequences will make it edgy and pretty dark as well.