My early acting was ingenue stuff.
In England, entertainment by and for Indians is huge.
I live in New York, so I don't get that many Indian scripts.
I love Bollywood films, but I have been trained in independent cinema.
Theatre reminds me of Bollywood.
I have always loved doing accents. I have lived with my parents in a number of countries, including Italy and Jamaica.
Unless you enjoy life passionately, you cannot be a good artiste. Practise what you like, be it sports or dancing.
No matter how much I read the news, I feel slightly ignorant all the time.
When you do TV, people will say to you right on the street how they're feeling, with no reservations.
To do a movie with someone like Tom Hanks that when you tell your dad, your dad knows who Tom Hanks is - it feels like you're finally giving back to your parents. It's like you've actually done something that they can recognize, and there's something in me that makes them super proud.
I know I create major reactions in people.
For 'For Real,' where I play a singer who has to give up her passion for her husband and family, I practised singing for hours, in bathroom, in subways, though I am tone deaf.
Having grown up in different countries - Jamaica, Italy, U.K. - I catch the accents quite easily. In the U.S., they don't know where I am from!
I am trained in theatre, and so I take time to study and get into the skin of a character.
If you ever watch me at theatre rehearsals, you will know what a bad actress I am. I am bad... bad... bad... and then, by opening night, it all just falls into place.
I want my life to match my work now. I don't want to work and then travel. I want to be at one place.
My parents live in Kolkata, so I come every year.
I would do Bollywood, but I don't know if I could do that - the dance, the singing, the kind of flirting with your eyes, the outfits.
I was raised around the world.
Anything, really - I'm as comfortable playing an Indian as playing a black woman or a South American.
