Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

I really thought I couldn't be a mum. We had tried several times with IVF,, and it hadn't worked and we'd given up in a way. We both thought, 'You know what, that's that. It's not going to happen - let's move on.'

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

Southall Broadway, in west London, has been a constant part of my life from the day I arrived in England as a baby from Kenya in 1962. My parents rented a room in one of the terraces off the Broadway, and I've seen it change from an ordinary English high street to what is now 'Little India.' with a confident Asian community.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

'Up the Junction' really made me understand the power of cinema to create a vivid sense of a community. When I went on to make 'Bhaji on the Beach,' it was this sense I tried to recreate.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

The more I make films, the more I feel less inclined to talk about them and just let people watch them. I feel that the pictures are telling the story, and I can't really add anything except just talking about the technicalities of what happened on the day.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

When you're told that as a filmmaker of colour, the stories you want to tell aren't commercial enough, then you start thinking, 'I'm going to tell them anyway.'

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

One of the head guys at Disney categorically said to me, 'We don't want to make children's films any more. We want to make films that are going to appeal to all quadrants.' Hence you have films like 'Shrek' and all the Pixar stuff, which is designed to suit everybody.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

Bollywood is a cinema of vibrant contradictions, which works when it seems it shouldn't.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

As I grew up, I always refused to cook Indian food very vehemently, and to this day, I don't cook chapatis at home. I'd always say, 'Why do I have to do it? Why don't the men do it?'

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

I knew from an early age that people didn't see the different sides of me. I formulated a kind of bi-cultural identity quite early, and I was always very comfortable with it, but I knew people didn't quite see that.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

I know it sounds really weedy, but we are all children who seek approval from our parents.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

The fact that it's hard to create an original British musical doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

There are very few people who are Asian who have the kind of global reach that I have, not just with Asians but with non-Asians. I've worked hard for what my name represents, my brand, not just in Britain but around the world.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

Third-generation Indians love maintaining their cultural traditions, but they can also go down the pub, shop till they drop, do whatever anyone else does.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

One of the best things about the award season is that when a British film succeeds at the Oscars and BAFTAs, such as 'Slumdog Millionaire' in 2009 and 'The King's Speech' this year, the British public get right behind it with an immense sense of national pride.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

It's not simply that British films do well at the box office and generate revenue, it's that they provide a window to the world of what Britain and its culture is about.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

Our films have the ability to tell global audiences who we are, and this is something the government should feel compelled to protect. My film, 'Bend it Like Beckham,' for example, would not have been made without the backing and support of the U.K. Film Council.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

I was a journalist when I made 'I'm British But...' I'd seen how important the media was in terms of defining Indians - after the riots in the '80s, I was like, 'Oh my God!'

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

I love 'I'm British But...' It's such a sweet, innocent, open-hearted film, and it has the sort of openness that I still aspire to with everything I do. It wears its heart, head, everything on its sleeve.

Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha

I'm absolutely delighted because I'm part of the process that has made Asians very much part of the mainstream fabric of Britain, whereas, when I first started, we were completely on the margin.