I have grown up watching Satyajit Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee, Ritwik Ghatak, Raj Kapoor; listening to SD Burman, RD, Kishore Kumar and Salil Chowdhury.
I loved the cinema of Basu Chatterjee, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Bhattacharya. Their movies were close to life, yet heart-warming.
I grew up watching Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray and Mirnal Sen's works in my youth, which was a very turbulent phase in Bengal's history.
Bengal has always produced good cinema, be it Satyajit Ray or Ritwik Ghatak.
I was fortunate enough to work with legends like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu Chatterjee, Vijay Anand and Yash Chopra, and contemporary filmmakers like Farhan Akhtar and Karan Johar.
We used to do four or five films at a time and were not able to experiment with too many things. But, the heart was in the right place and everybody worked passionately. We had wonderful directors like Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Raj Kapoor.
I was shocked when Raj Kumar Santhoshi approached me for 'Ghatak.'
It's true I was approached for 'Heroine' but I couldn't do the film as the dates were clashing with Kamaleswar Mukherjee's film 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' based on the life of Ritwik Ghatak, where I played the lead.
Working with stalwarts like Satyajit Ray, Soumitra Chatterjee and Rabi Ghosh is an experience I always cherish.
Culturally, I remember listening to Salil Chowdhury's music for Malayalam films. Many Bengali actors have worked in our films, too.
A hero today must be Raj Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan rolled into one. These are the six hero slots in Hindi cinema and an actor must be able to play all if he wants a long innings.
I tried to keep the Raj Kapoor spirit. Everybody is not a Raj Kapoor.
My father, Inder Raj Anand - a famous writer in his own right - was a great friend of Satyajit Ray.
I was lucky to work with some of the finest filmmakers - Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray, Vijay Anand, Raj Khosla, Asit Sen.
I have earlier played Ritwik Ghatak on screen. It was one of the toughest roles.
Ray Lewis, I've grown up watching Ray Lewis. Just watching his intensity, his passion for the game, his love for the game, his work ethic. Everything in a linebacker that you want to be is in Ray Lewis, from leadership qualities, all that.
I am huge fan of Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Ghulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan. Listening to these people inspired me to become a singer.