I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.

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.

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

I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.

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 look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.

My family is almost exactly like the one in 'Monsoon Wedding'. We are very open, fairly liberal, loud people.