I never make a distinction between doing a film in Hollywood or doing a film independently. It's just the story. It's always the story for me. The constants are that it should challenge me and I shouldn't repeat myself. And the story should always be a story worth telling.
People want a certain amount of respect when they watch a film: it should be worth of their time.
If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. If it is worth attaining, it is worth fighting for. If it is worth experiencing, it is worth putting aside time for.
If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.
If a film is suitable for family viewing, it should remain so, and if a film has some adult content, it should remain so, and these genres should never be mixed and spoil the vision of the story teller.
I believe today that there is no film and no shot in a film that is worth a squirrel getting a sprained ankle.
Early on everyone should do, every time they do a big film, they should do a little film. It really does keep you grounded.
A film is its own thing and in an ideal world I think a film should be discovered knowing nothing and nothing should be added to it and nothing should be subtracted from it.
I just constantly tell myself that I should be the only one to define my worth and what I'm capable of and how I perceive myself. And that I should never source that worth from other people, especially strangers on social media. They don't know who I am, the length of my journey, who I am as a person.
Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.
I think personally that every actress should do a little film. Even a short film. And all directors should act, to know how difficult it is also the other way around.
Hindi film industry makes film for the rest of the world. Tamil films are watched by Malay people. When a film is not bound by a language, why should an actor be?
African films should be thought of as offering as many different points of view as the film of any other different continent. Nobody would say that French film is all European film, or Italian film is all European film. And in the same way that those places have different filmmakers that speak to different issues, all the countries in Africa have that too.
It's important that a film is loud and I hope many people agree. You should be inside of a film when you go into a theater. It should surround you, envelope you, so you can live inside a dream.
What people ask for has nothing to do with the value of a property. You might see a listing for $300,000 and think you should make a $250,000 bid. But hyper-focus on what the house is worth. You should know what the house is worth by looking at comparable properties. Base your bid on that.
I think film should raise questions, not give answers. I think film should challenge people to reflect, debate and get by themselves to the answer that fits them.