Film is my favourite without a doubt. I am a film romantic and I love the grandeur of cinema. Dark theatres and big screens are my first love.
Naseer Sir taught me while I was a student at the Film and Television Institute of India. Anything I know about acting is thanks to him.
The best option that you can have as an actor is pure instinct and you should be able to protect your instinct. Information can either cloud your instinct or aid it.
Infidelity is a fairly common occurrence in society but very often not spoken about.
In acting, I've found my soulmate.
I like a sensitive script, interesting and respectful directors and co-actors, producers who understand the creative needs of a project. A happy unit in which everyone collaborates to try and make something compelling.
There are very few parts, and very few scripts, that acknowledge women as sexual beings, or simply just recognise that women have desires.
The problem is never the audience, it has always been the distribution. The digital space is proof that the audience is quite accepting.
In Bombay, people usually tend to cast you in roles that you've played before. Even though they may consider you to be a talented actor, they just think it's 'safer' to have you play the same kind of roles over and over again.
I have been offered roles in mainstream films which have not been interesting to me. They have been too insignificant.
There's a difference between being a star and an actor. If you feed off from being in the public eye, this is the unfortunate flipside to it.
It is nice to have a lot of people watch your work but I really have thought of it as not the goal of my career but a bonus in my career.
I don't have much foresight, and I think that's an asset for an actor.
Of course, I'm open to all kinds of genres. In my head, there are no demarcations.
Memories come out only when you spend time with a person.
Women often get ignored from main narrative, especially in films.
My family moved from Rangoon to Rawalpindi during World War II. My father was born in Lahore in 1946. Those were difficult times.
I want to do roles that are important for the story and not there for ornamental value or to just aid another character in the film which is often a 'friend's role' in mainstream films.
Filmmaking, it has been my first love.
It is exciting to see the different genres that audiences want to watch. The response to a show like 'Mirzapur' last year and to Delhi Crime earlier this year was so encouraging and a proof that good content is the new formula.
