One of the things I enjoyed the most is just working as an actor.

Some of the ideas are kind of inspired by the songs, and I always want to use music to tell the story and give the movie a certain kind of mood. That's always essential to me.

When I see the first dailies on any movie, I usually feel that I had no idea how this combination of ingredients was going to mix together, what it was going to produce.

India is a place where one of the great pleasures for a foreigner is that you're constantly surprised. Everywhere you look is something that is either funny, or very moving, but there is always so much that is so unexpected. That's part of the reason why people who like it tend to love it.

It's not usually that great of an idea to read lots of reviews of your movies, because even if somebody's saying nice things, there'll still be something in there that pushes the wrong button, and it's not really that helpful.

Kids are always open to anything. It's very rare that a kid isn't extremely eager to make you happy.

People seem to think that my movies are so carefully coordinated and arranged - and in a lot of ways, they are - but every single time I make a movie, I feel that every director makes these choices. You make choices about your script, you make choices about your actors, and how you're going to stage it, and how you're going to shoot it, and what the costumes are going to be like, and in every single detail, you make that decision. And for me, what ends up happening is, I wind up surprised at the combination of all these ingredients. It never is anything like what I expected.