You don't get to celebrate yourself unless you risk being mocked or rejected. As an artist, you cannot play it safe. You just can't.

When I was a kid, I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.

I'm from that world where I feel so comfortable making small independent movies.

This is the problem with being Indian. It's hard to be one of the family members. Everybody is white usually [in the movie].

The beauty is that we can blur film and TV a little bit more.

My grandparents were classic Indian grandparents. My grandmother would put so much powder on her face that it was like a Kabuki play and she'd come down the stairs. I was like 8 or 9 years old. My grandfather apparently had no teeth because he would take out his teeth and put them in a glass, and then he would try to scare me with it. I started to try to scare them when I was a little older.

I love 'The Killing', I love 'Homeland' and 'Mad Men', all those shows that lean into the tone of things.