“My dad told me when I was very young, that I should not get married before 30. His only advice to me was to live my life.”

No matter what you achieve, what you want to aspire to be, or how famous and powerful you become, the most important thing is whether you are excited about each and every moment of your life because of your work and people around you.

Practical knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work is much better. Theoretical knowledge is important, but I think practical knowledge works better.

When I was in the eighth standard, I would dance to ‘Suraj hua madham.’ I have to achieve many things before I become even the ‘S’ of SRK.

TV helped me understand camera angles, close-ups, master shots.

What keeps me going are my learnings, which I would rather call my ‘experience,’ and my urge to explore.

I have made a lot of mistakes, but I am proud of them all.

What people think of me doesn’t affect me. As bizarre as it sounds, I don’t have a Google alert on my phone; I don’t read newspapers, and I don’t watch television. If something important happens, I will get to know about it.

I realised quite early that by the time I articulate my thoughts into words, I’m on to another thought. And what comes out wasn’t what I thought of exactly. So not talking was a better option.

I left everything I had to become an actor. So, I better be excited, or otherwise, there is no point in doing all this. Else I would end up being disappointed with whatever I achieve.

Since I think I am very boring in normal life, I tend to hide behind all these exciting characters, making people believe that I am someone else entirely. That feeling is very powerful.

People assume that actors working in films won’t have the time to do theatre. But I make sure that whenever I’m free, I watch a play.

I read the script. If I like it, I would do anything I am asked to.

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

I never think about what people will think when they watch me on screen.

I am not bothered with whether my characters are conventional or not. Because I am not in this for the designer labels and the autographs.

I think people generally are lost, as they keep thinking about what is going to happen and what they have done. They are not alive anymore. The art of listening is missing. In their head, they are doing something else.

When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It’s not enough, but it helps.

My father was a great innovator in public life, but when it came to raising his daughters, no one could have been more conservative.

My father had extravagant notions of my beauty, grace, wit, and charm.

On Halloween, because we don’t celebrate it, my dad would drive me somewhere, anywhere different. Like Little Italy in New York to walk around and teach me all about the food and culture.

I don’t want my kids saying, ‘My dad was a gangster, so I need to be a gangster. I would rather mine say, ‘My dad was a stunna, so I need to be a stunna.

My parents are really conservative. My dad is Muslim, and my mom is the most conservative woman you’ve ever met. They’re very aristocratic in the most quaint suburban way.

I learned from my father to translate: everything I read I try to figure out what it really means, what it’s really saying.

There’s something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It’s like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.