Everything in 'Satya' was by chance. It was a film which just started evolving by itself. I just went mostly by instinct and kept on improvising on location, and the film just got made itself.
I was about 6 or 7, I would have said I wanted to be an actor and an artist. And that just kind of kept honing itself around film and getting closer to film.
I taught a master class in film in France, and that was a great experience because I got a chance to study the French film culture and the French film history, so to add... just to expand myself just personally and professionally was really helpful.
Sometimes you remember more about the location where you shot the film than the film itself.
If I'd have gone to art school, or stayed in anthropology, I probably would have ended up back in film ... Mostly I just followed my inner feelings and passions ... and kept going to where it got warmer and warmer, until it finally got hot ... Everybody has talent. It's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is.
If you take 'Agni Natchathiram,' it is about two half-brothers and their emotions and those are genuine, which can be made into a very hard-hitting film just that it can be presented in an entertaining fashion. Similarly with 'OK Kanmani,' it is a genuine film; it is not a flippant film just for commercial purposes.
What I noticed is that the lens from which people want to look at 'Minari' is just from that Asian-American angle. And I think that can end up being very frustrating. Because the craft of the film, and this film itself, is meant to embody a lot of different things.
The 'Station to Station' film has been fascinating to create. It feels as though it made itself in a way, and after awhile, the film told us what it needed and began to sculpt itself.
I try to follow my instinct as a moviegoer and I do the thing I would love to see it at a movie. I'm like everyone, almost, I go to a movie once a week. I like every kind of film if it’s well made. I’m fine. I’m not a specialist fighting for a genre of film. You just have to follow your instinct.
When I was 8, my dad asked me if I wanted to audition, just for fun. I did just a little short film, and I liked it. I just kept doing it, and then I started getting bigger auditions for bigger roles.
I certainly don't feel like I am desperate to run away from a film set. I love the hustle and bustle. Everything is sort of mad right before a take, and then it just settles, and you've got these two minutes of a bit of magic. I just love that in film.
My first horror film was - well, I don't know. 'Bless the Child' is sort of genre, but 'May' was such a cult hit that after that, I just started getting offers for horror. I think I got a little bit pigeonholed in it right off of 'May' because there was just such a large response to that film.
I just have more fun when I get to try new things - and the action film genre has kind of painted itself into a corner, copied itself so many times and it has basically run out of bad buys.
I approach every film I do in the same way, whether it's an action film or not an action film. I guess if a certain physicality lends itself to action, but I started acting before I reached puberty. I was 7 years old when I started acting. It wasn't until I became a bouncer in New York.
Hardly any one is able to see what is before him, just as it is in itself. He comes expecting one thing, he finds another thing, he sees through the veil of his preconception, he criticizes before he has apprehended, he condemns without allowing his instinct the chance of asserting itself.
I shoot very little film. If you just do coverage you're shooting any number of potential films instead of just one, and I was shooting just one specific film. Film is cheap but time is expensive.
What happens in Israel, it's not so divided between being a film actor, or a TV actor - usually, we just do everything. I do theater, film, and television, and the theater is mostly financed by the government.