“I’m always inspired by actresses who are older than me. Because I know that person has lived so much more life than I have. There’s a whole other toolbox.”

There are moments to indulge and enjoy, but I always know when it’s time to go home and wash my knickers.

Of course I believe in marriage. Commitment to one other person in life is glorious.

Regret isn’t good. Every decision one makes in life is made for a reason or another. Whenever something bad happens, I go, ‘This is happening for a reason’, or, ‘This is going to teach me something’.

I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin.

If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail.

I wanted to play incredibly challenging, multifaceted characters. Because we are all a puzzle.

I have just wanted to be an actress. That’s always been my goal. I didn’t want to be famous.

I struggle for what I believe in. Life is short, it’s impossible to repeat something; you have to take advantage of things when you can reach them.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, or what you do in your life, you never stop needing your mom.

If you’re not still learning and growing as an actor, then you have no backbone and no career.

She has a choice. She can either accept a life of misery or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle…she fails in the end but there’s something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion.

I have no regrets. If you regret things, you’re sort of stepping backwards. I’m a believer in going forwards.

Acting is about being real, being honest.

The audience’s reactions are more important: if people believe in the love story, it’s because they love how we’ve acted. That’s the most beautiful award. It’s very important for me, people appreciating what I do.

I’ve never understood the notion that actors and actresses should look great on-screen just because they’re on-screen. That doesn’t make sense to me.

I am a person. I am not a soap opera. There is never going to be a next [tabloid] installment about my life because my own stuff is my own stuff.

Frankly, I’m an actor right now because of Shah Rukh. When I was in school and even when studying engineering, I used to watch his films.

As an actor, you think you know your craft, you know the conflicts in your character, but often you don’t.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is the best actor because his choice of roles are so diametrically opposite from each other, and he pulls it off almost every time so convincingly.

It’s cruel to compare two actors working with two different filmmakers on two different characters.

You have to trust your instincts. There is a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it.

Don Siegel last advice to me was ‘Don’t short yourself.’ He said the tendency is when an actor’s directing is to kind of you want to work on everybody else but you’re going to short yourself. He said, take the time to do a good job with yourself so that you’re satisfied with it.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.

In other words, I wouldn’t like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviourally wild, and it’s crazy to think of any form where it’s just one way.