Meeting Helen Mirren was a fabulous experience. I had played it out in my mind, how I should greet her when we would be introduced. But the way we met was funny because I just didn't recognise her!

We have filmmakers who make films with some kind of responsibility and take cinema seriously like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Prakash Jha. But now these people also take stars Without stars they cannot work.

The fact is I like Mumbai less and less. My son says, 'Baba, let's go for a drive', and I tell him, 'Where's the fun of a drive in this place?' You get caught in a million traffic jams, and you spend time cooped in your car with all that mad cacophony around you.

I am grateful to theatre for making me what I am today. But it's not like theatre is my first love. I am equally attached to cinema, which is, actually, a child of theatre, since it borrows heavily from it.

I have no regrets at all. I have done quite well for myself. I didn't have a conventional face, but I have done well, and I am proud of it.

Parallel cinema has not made an effort to communicate in a language the other person understands.

I was very shy and very reserved as a child, very, very introvert.