If my accomplishments frighten someone, it's nothing to do with me - that's to do with them. But the men who are in my life see me as a person - as a woman - not as a character I've played.
All my life, men have told me I wasn't pretty enough - even the men I was dating. And I'd be like, 'Well, why are you with me, then?' It's always been men putting me down just like my dad. To this day when someone says I'm cute, I can't see it. I don't see it no matter what anybody says.
My demeanor isn't that of a woman enraged. To see me slumped, glassy-eyed, holding a sandwich someone has cut for me into four "manageable" pieces, a person might tell you I look much more like a woman subdued.
Switching the public's perception and view of me was, and still is, kind of a challenge to get them to see me outside of a character that I played on TV for so long.
I want my daughters to see me and know me as a woman who works. I want that example set for them... I am a better mother for it. The woman I am because I get to run Shondaland, because I get write all day, because I get to spend my days making things up, that woman is a better person - and a better mother. Because that woman is happy. That woman is fulfilled. That woman is whole. I wouldn't want them to know the me who didn't get to do this all day long. I wouldn't want them to know the me who wasn't doing.
A character does seem to have a life of its own, but I have what I'd describe as a very fluid relationship with them - as I'm thinking of what they will be like, they shift in and out of focus - they are a projection of some idea inside of me, even if a character is inspired by an actual person, I'm well aware that it is not that person. My job is to identify the essence of the character, and to bring them to life long enough to commit the acts, say the words or simply "be" in a way that allows them to affect and be affected by other elements and events in the imaginary world of a story.
Someone who surprises me, someone who makes me laugh, and someone who has her own life and wants to share that with me. I hate those relationships where someone is just following the other person around, you know?
Some men enjoy the constant strife Of days with work and worry rife, But that is not my dream of life: I think such men are crazy. For me, a life with worries few, A job of nothing much to do, Just pelf enough to see me through: I fear that I am lazy.
In 1983, when I did 'Sindhu Bhairavi' and played the other woman, many men came up to me and said it opened up a lot to them. The film showed that a man and woman could have an intellectual and artistic relationship.
The person you see in the ring is me in a mosh pit, pretty much. I am that character, I don't even like calling it a character. It's just me.
I don't think I change, but it definitely makes me aware of some of the things that are inside of me. Actually, because I have played a lot of villains up until now, I put something of myself into these roles. So when I see myself on the screen I'm more aware of when I'm like them in real life. I can feel it. That's the character you play; that's the guy you don't want to be. So I'm more in control of it.
Novels are political because in them, we try to identify with people who are not like us. And, in that sense, I like the first-person singular because I have to imitate accurately the voice of someone who is not like me. The third-person singular gives me an authority over a character.
When I'm inside the character, I feel like I'm a different person, and then when you see that character on screen and I see that it's me, I find that disappointing.
But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.
Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.
I don't see my old films, but I think of the characters I played as friends, like the women I meet in my life who made strong impressions on me. I remember them and they are part of me.
With me, what you see is what you get. Yes, call me naive, but I love life. I am happy, and for that, I make no apologies. I do like to see the best in people, and when someone is nice to my face, I tend to believe them.