I want to do different roles and not get stuck in a rut and 'Shanghai' will be one film I'm absolutely looking forward to.
Lot of people liked me in 'Manorama Six feet Under,' 'Oye Lucky Lucky Oye,' 'Dev D' and 'Shanghai' and the only common thing in all these films is that when we were making them we never thought they would work. The ones that did not work were safe films.
The Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo show just how much effort China is willing to spend to enter the global stage. But while China desires to understand the world, it fails to accept its universal values.
There is something in Shanghai that is very exciting and alive - the idea of a city with two different souls, one from today and another from a long time ago, is amazing.
I read academic books on courtesan culture at the turn-of-the century in Shanghai such as Gail Hershatter's 'The Gender of Memory'. The diaries were mostly in the form of letters from courtesans to a lover who had disappeared or taken their savings.
That's part of the character of Shanghainese people. They're good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality: Shanghai personality becomes part of yours. Just like New Yorkers - they're often like that.
I went to an exhibition at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum about Shanghai, about how courtesans had been influential in bringing western culture to Shanghai. I bought a book and in it saw this striking group of women in a photograph called 'The Ten Beauties of Shanghai'.
I see Baccarat in major gateway cities like Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong and exotic resort locations.
The primary school I attended in Shanghai was a very liberal one, established by scholars who had return from an education in France. The children of leading families were enrolled there, including the son of a well-known man believed to be a top gangster of the underworld!
The rise or fall of Shanghai means the birth or death of the whole nation.
