“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.”

You cannot go beyond a certain limit in your expenditure if you want to bring back money from your local market, which is very small after Pakistan.

For a film maker, an Oscar is like a Nobel Prize, you know. So I am very happy… delighted. There is nothing more after this. I cannot hope to get anything more prestigious.

Particularly in the final stages I always find that I’m rushed. It’s dangerous when you’re rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.

When I’m shooting on location, you get ideas on the spot – new angles. You make not major changes but important modifications, that you can’t do on a set. I do that because you have to be economical.

I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music.

What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.

My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.

I had developed this habit of writing scenarios as a hobby. I would find out which stories had been sold to be made into films and I would write my own treatment and then compare it.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

I wouldn’t mind taking a rest for three or four months, but I have to keep on making films for the sake of my crew, who just wait for the next film because they’re not on a fixed salary.

I don’t start a film with the heroine but with the cinema subject. If there is a woman in the story, she has to be of a particular type. It’s not as if I start with Madhuri Dixit and then think what kind of film.

The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.

It was only after Pather Panchali had some success at home that I decided to do a second part. But I didn’t want to do the same kind of film again, so I made a musical.

When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I’m familiar with. I don’t write stories about the nineteenth century.

I’ve made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.

There’s always some room for improvisation.

My tramp is made up of mimicry.

But I always feel that whatever I do, I could do better. I suppose it is perfectionism.

I think in many ways Johnny English is a more believable character.

I don’t really like dressing up. Some people probably think actresses dress up everywhere they go. I’m in sweatpants half the time with my hair in a ponytail.

I think all women in Hollywood are known as sex symbols. That’s what our purpose is in this business. You’re merchandised, you’re a product. You’re sold and it’s based on sex. But that’s okay. I think women should be empowered by that, not degraded.

Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

Actors search for rejection. If they don’t get it they reject themselves.

It’s better for the whole world to know you, even as a sex star, than never to be known at all.