“That’s your job as the actor, to understand the human part of the character, to make it real.”

Your best posture is your next posture.

As you grow in this business, you learn how to do more with less.

I was lucky in that when the opportunity came, I was prepared to meet it.

Forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear.

I am God. So it’s easy to play him. They say God is in all things. So if God is in me, then I am in God. Therefore, I am God. God does not exist without me.

I don’t know what my favorite film of mine is but I think the most important film I was in was ‘Glory’.

Reading one book a day to your child can change the trajectory of their future.

I’m not intimidated by lead roles. I’m better in them. I don’t feel pressure. I feel released at times like that. That’s what I’m born to do.

As long as you feel like a victim, you are one.

In the harshest place on Earth, love finds a way.

We humans are more concerned with having than with being.

I was an imaginative child and learning to read was like unlocking another dimension in my mind.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don’t get it, I can’t do it.

You can’t take credit for talent; you can only take credit for using it.

“Invictus” was more a parable in terms of what is possible in life.

Studies have shown kids have a greater chance for lifelong success if they know how to read by the third grade.

As an actor, you create a character from your understanding of what you have heard and your observations. Eventually, every film is an extension of the images that I have seen or what I have heard or read somewhere.

The better the actor, the more stupid he is.

Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.

I’m never certain of a performance – my own or the other actors’ – or the script or anything. But to me it seems there’s only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.

Acting is collaborative because you are working with another actor, and it’s almost like a two-man juggling team. You have to really be in sync.

Indian actors, because of the format of our stories, need to be good actors, and be able to perform emotional sequences, do a bit of comedy, dance and singing, action, because all of this forms just one film. In many ways I’d say there are greater demands on Indian actors than there are on Hollywood.

Comedy is difficult for an actor. But I think I have a good sense of humor and manage to make people laugh and make them happy.

Paris is the playwright’s delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor’s city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.