My English teacher always gave me scripts for plays, but I was into sports. My friend said there were small parts I could go up for, but the director gave me the part of Mozart, which was kind of the lead role. From then on I just loved it.

I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.

In music, what is very important is temporality of space and length, based on the breathing space the director gives the music within the film, by separating the music from various elements of reality, like noises, dialogues... That's how you treat music properly, but it doesn't always happen this way. Music is often blamed, but it's not its fault.

I would never have become music director of the Chicago Symphony, which would have been an extremely sad loss.

It's sad - it's sad for us old enough to remember when directors ruled, and films were substantially better than they are today. But it's hard to argue with those kinds of grosses.

The second you become an actress, people take the licence to make many assumptions about you. You're in trouble if you interact with a director/actor. You're in even more trouble if you don't. When I started out, a single YouTube comment would make me sad for days, and I'd wonder how people could say such nasty things about me.

It is really a sad state of affairs if I am still the only commercially successful woman director. We need a lot more commercially viable women, not only in direction.

I hooked up with director Jacques Audiard for this film called 'Rust & Bone' with Marion Cotillard. I loved that experience so much I'm truly sad that it's over!

Whenever I'm doing anything romantic with an actor, or if there's a director around, I never want anybody's wife to feel threatened by me.

'The Best Man' was my first feature film, and I didn't want to be known as a director who only does romantic comedies.

I think we've always been fascinated with the idea of the romantic outlaw. John Gotti could be in one instance a charismatic, kind and loving family man, and in another, deadly to his enemies. The opportunity to tell the true story of Gotti with John Travolta is a director's dream.

'Aashiq' is a romantic film, even though my character is a rather aggressive guy. You could even call it an intense romance. And working with Indra Kumar has been an excellent experience. He is a great director.

'English Vinglish' has given me so much respect. I am really thankful to director Gauri Shinde and her husband R. Balki. They blindly believed in me.

I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. Judd Apatow is fantastic at it. But as an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written.

The director respects what they've hired you for and chosen you for: to do the part and respect what you're doing.

I've always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.

I guess people feel that if you're working with good directors and are known in the Hindi film industry, then you won't work in South films. However, I believe that films have no boundaries of language, religion, or cast. If it's a good script and a good director, I can do a film in Spanish as well.

Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn't just a director. He's potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.

It's a very tricky relationship, the cinematographer and the director as a woman.

I kind of feel like... I have a slower instinct than most live-action directors, but I have more patience.

That's why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.

I couldn't be a director because I couldn't put up with the actors. I don't have the patience. Why, I'd probably kill the actors. Not to mention some of the beautiful actresses.

A director's job is like parenting. You have to look after your actors like children, pay attention to each of their different abilities.

I joined the Madras Christian College but dropped out after three months. Telugu music director Ramesh Naidu asked me to assist him, and I did so for over a year. I did think of rejoining college, but by then, I was discovering the musician in me. I worked with Illaya Raja and Raj Koti and soon shifted to commercials. This led to movie offers.