I wasn't looking to be a star, I just happened to love acting, I was a reluctant actor.
My parents were not poor, I mean we were a very average middle-class family of academics, but my grandfather happened to have built house literally next to one of Kolkata's largest slum.
After 'Stree', I started believing that yes, I am an actor. 'Paatal Lok' happened at the right time, when I was ready to go deep, to create something of my own and I gave it all.
There are so many actresses I want to write for. I see them, and I think, 'Why is she not playing that lead? What's happened to that actress?' I think all I can do is to write parts for women, to say, 'Keep going, keep acting, because there are parts for you. There will be those plays.'
What happened with 'Mad Men' was I had just had my child, I was in a very literally and creatively fertile time in my life, and I wasn't leaving the house much. So when 'Mad Men' came along, I was so excited to leave the house. Like, I get to go do this beautiful thing.
A holiday is when you celebrate something that's all finished up, that happened a long time ago and now there's nothing left to celebrate but the dead.
One thing I love to do is produce. I've produced a couple of bands. I mean, nothing ever really happened with 'em, but I enjoy getting a young band into the studio and guiding them, and making them feel at ease.
The job at Brooklyn is interesting because Brooklyn reflects what happened to university art departments everywhere. It might be the worst department now, and yet at one point it was the best in the country.
You have to be talented. You have to work hard; you have to get the right pieces flowin' for you at the right time. And that's just what happened to me. I can't explain what happened.
My daughter's the greatest thing that's happened to me in my life and she turned me into a more responsible man, as opposed to just someone who's a perpetual teenager, thinking you're a man when you're not.
