We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do.

I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. They teach us how to see the world in that sense. They are without artifice; they see it for what it is. I am drawn to that ruthless honesty.

I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.

If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.

Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.

Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.