I had read the 'Mahabharat' thoroughly even before meeting B. R. Chopra Sir. I knew the most important character was Duryodhan. Without him the 'Mahabharat' would not have happened. I straight away went and asked for that character itself.
Every House has a Duryodhan, Dhritarashtra, Shakuni, Arjun, Karan, Gandhari, Bhishma . That's the Beauty of 'Mahabharat.'
I feel I am the reincarnation of Duryodhan. There are lots of similarities between me and him.
No matter how you feel about your extended family or family gatherings you will be attending. This is because now the ultimate reason for attending family gatherings is for your children to have the time of their lives with their cousins. Little kids love their cousins. I’m not being cute or exaggerating here. Cousins are like celebrities for little kids. If little kids had a People magazine, cousins would be on the cover. Cousins are the barometers of how fun a family get-together will be. “Are the cousins going to be there? Fun!
I played Duryodhan, the young prince, 28 years ago. People still identify me as Duryodhan. But at 55, I cannot hope to play a 25-year-old.
The beauty about the 'Mahabharat' is that every character has shades of grey.
If you never fall in love with your character, you'll never be able to do that character justice. No matter who it is, no matter what the character does, you have to find the reason for it. Everyone's got a reason for what they do, even if it's a reason that they're not proud of.
In other words, character is far more important than intellect to the race as to the individual. We need intellect, and there is no reason why we should not have it together with character; but if we must choose between the two we choose character without a moment's hesitation.
Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?
The war existing between the senses and reason.
We have always put the quest for balance at the center of our storytelling, whether it is the struggle to find it within one character, between a character and society, between disparate cultures or between humans and their environment.
In any character you are given to play, be it evil/good/whatever character, you begin with self. You examine yourself and ruthlessly see similarities between you and the devil, or between you and the dictator, or between you and the kind man.
I say openly that I am an anti-war person, with the point being, show me some reason not to be against this war. You have to be sort of asleep at the switch not to be critical of it. And the parallel between one quagmire we went through in Vietnam and the one we're in now is clear for everybody to see.
There is no war between Muslims and Americans. There is no war between Americans and the poor people in the world. There is only a war between people on the top who have their own agenda.
If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another... after the war is on.
Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions.