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

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 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.

We should never forget the inevitable, as we will lose everything eventually. So, why fret over any kind of security? The idea is to just fly and experience it all while it lasts.

I am learning the importance of living in the moment.

Money was a big differentiator when I was growing up, but I made sure it doesn’t stay that way.

I am not saying that those who crave for conventional stardom are wrong in their aspirations. But that’s not what I want.

I am not lost. I am very much alive.

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.

I experienced a lot of things while I was working with Dibakar Banerjee.

I love layering with great fitting jackets.

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

There are 7 billion people in the world, but there’s only one heavyweight champion of the world, and that’s me.

I don’t want people to treat me like a star or call me one.

I stopped telling people what lyrics meant to them when I saw them tattoo it on them, because it clearly meant much more to them than it ever did to me.

I’ve been fighting my whole career to show a different side and prove naysayers – not prove them wrong, because I don’t think you should get your energy from negative people.

It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.

You see, in their last moments people show you who they really are.

I want to make people have fun again and show people that people can just rap and snap.

With rap, it’s a funny thing. You can say things, and people can take ’em the way they wanna take ’em.