I love music, but can't hold a note in a bucket. I can't sing, can't play an instrument.
I was an executive producer. I've done a lot of jobs and I think each one helps you get closer to what you want as a director. It also helps you - when you work with different filmmakers - to absorb, to adapt, to know what to watch out for, to know pitfalls.
I've grown up in the film industry and I've been watching them, analyzing them, laughing at them, totally understanding them and getting their point of view, and, at times, taking up for them. So I'm part of it and it's part of me.
To make a good film is an art. Gender is irrelevant when it comes to craft of filmmaking.
At 19, while studying at St Xavier's College and majoring in literature and sociology, I got my first job as a copywriter. It was at a company called the Script Shop.
You realize you have to become aware of your inner monologue. The things you say to yourself. This raised my consciousness so it was vital to my growth, I would say.
This is kind of a dual existence where you are harsh but at the same time emotional. You are there because you have experienced trauma.
My evenings are usually spent eating cake with tea, which I should stop. Then I either hang with friends or watch something. I like my evenings free because that is when I get to spend time with myself, my dogs or with friends.
Some of my characters are drawn from people I know whereas others are an amalgamation of people or one specific person. Sometimes a character is simply fictional. It is always a mix.
Most good actors you work with, they actually bring something to the creative process and to the script. They help shape the character with you. Whereas, some actors are so worried about their image and not about the character, it doesn't help the story.
What a good actor brings to a script is something, sometimes, even directors can't imagine. The director should always have the last say though.
I had an experience which I could not explain to myself and to others while I was on my way back from a south Mumbai party. It was near Haji Ali. All six of us who were travelling went through this. And this experience which I went through became the vital ingredient of the story of 'Talaash'.