It was the success of 'Bend it Like Beckham' which got my name out there. 'A Mighty Heart' also helped.

My mother told me not to listen to anyone. She had been told that she wouldn't be able to teach and she did.

I like to do new things, so I always take on roles that I feel will keep me on my toes. I never want to pigeon myself, so I always like to surprise myself. I believe in versatility and so I would play anything as long as it was a challenge.

Sometimes my ethnicity is relevant, other times not. I definitely get the best of both worlds.

I am still married, yes - no children. I have Benzo, though; he's my dog, a Lhasa apso.

There is a big misconception about arranged marriage. Yes, it can mean that you meet someone and then have to marry them, but this was my mother saying, 'I'm going to introduce you to so-and-so - If you don't like them, fair enough.

As soon as I moved to New York, I experienced Hurricane Irene and then Hurricane Sandy hit me in quite a big way. I had 12 days without any electricity or any water. The thing that I realized the most from it was that we've become so dependent on technology. There's so much accessibility to information that suddenly when everything is cut off, you're completely lost, and you start asking deeper and more profound questions - how short life is, and how grateful we should be for things.