Pankaj Kapur Quotes

I believe that the performance of my actors is of utmost importance to make a good film.

I know that people in Dubai are particularly well read, educated and intelligent and that the audience in front of me will come looking forward to an evening that is different from watching a film. That is the kind of crowd that goes to a theatre or a play and I am hoping to see many of them in Dubai.

I admit I’m choosy. That’s because I like to concentrate on what I’m doing.

Drama should be taught in schools to have more artistic people.

Small events and some songs and dance do not make a film. A film needs to have a proper structure and there has to be an output which would be relevant to people who watch it.

‘Mausam’ is about seasons of love and not exactly about the weather.

I don’t think that a film that has children in it necessarily needs to be a children’s film.

My first love and my first instinct are acting.

Cinema which is well-made, for any kind of audience, is worthy of being watched by just about anybody who would like to watch a good story being told.

We compare everything with what is being done in the West. Even the film reviews are written like that. It is sad because we are trying to belittle ourselves.

I don’t have any single character that is my favorite because I would like to be known for the sum total of my work and not for an individual character that I might have played.

I might not do it again and again, but I would like to test waters which are considered forbidden for me. It is a human tendency.

I am a father who never pushes or forces his children into anything.

Back in the 1990s, I had an opportunity to make a film. But I realized that it is better for me to go in stages so I could explore myself as an actor and in the process I started writing scripts.

We have ambitions, we go on with our lives. We get married and have families. But I was interested to know what happens to those girls who become mothers and grandmothers. They sacrificed their self at a time when they were young and healthy.

My real uncle was a pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF). I was very enamored with him because he had a great personality. He used to look dashing in his uniform.

I feel you need to treat children as equals instead of giving them a complex – you are young, you are small, you don’t know.’

When I was doing theatre in Mumbai, actors won’t come because they had television. For many years, I did theatre religiously and in Mumbai, I saw people disrespecting it and it hurt me very badly.

I’ve been saying yes to almost every interesting script that comes my way.

I am not a person of schedule when it comes to writing.

I believe your children should work on their own and make a name for themselves. By doing this they become confident. My parents did this with me and I tried to do the same with my children.

I have been fortunate to get different types of work, but by and large till 90s for actors like me there were not many opportunities besides playing brother of the heroine or friend of the hero or young college villain after the earlier new wave was consumed by television.

My son has been wiser than me in terms of his career graph. He saw to it that he became a star first and start to get all the roles that he wanted to do.

Women do have better roles to play, more characters are being written. For instance, Surpriya Pathak’s character in ‘Ram Leela’ or Neena Gupta’s part in ‘Badhaai Ho’.’

There were certain things that I tried to do on ‘Karamchand.’ Initially, they were hated, but eventually everyone loved the characterization.

Television has been a powerful medium and it has been a huge part of my life at least 15 years.

As an actor, I have always felt, everything is available in the script. If there is anything you feel the script lacks, you can have a discussion with the director and point out those.

I am very lazy.

I wanted to understand the whole medium and that is when I decided to do television. Once I thought that, I was confident about making a film.

Most of the theatre work that you see in India is very verbose and the visual is whatever you can create on stage.

In the 80s, parallel cinema gained momentum. So, I got back to films and won National awards for Maqbool’ and other films.

Seventy years on, the wound of Partition is still raw. There have been some beautiful attempts like Garam Hava,’ but it’s not easy to make a film without hurting some sentiments.

If offered a good role, I would like to work in a good Punjabi film. This land has produced great writers, poets and actors.

I do a project and then I forget about it because the release of whatever work you have done is not in your hand.

Content-driven films can make money – something that is gripping, is a journey of revelation and is relevant is cinema.

For a father, to separate from his son is not easy.

I think younger generation is much smarter than us. I am happy and proud of my kids.

When an actor gets an opportunity to do things, only then can he prove his mettle.

When you ask me why I do one film a year, it is not my fault. I’ve chosen what I liked from whatever work came my way.

I must say that Bengaluru has been one of the best places where I’ve performed and I would love to associate with the theatre scene here on a personal level.

It wasn’t one film that changed my life, but a series of decisions that brought out the best in me.

The least anyone can do is pay attention to their parents and people who are elder to them.

While pursuing engineering, my passion for theatre grew. So, I told dad I wanted to pursue acting – ‘Do you really want to be an actor or are you drawn to the glamour?’ he asked. I convinced him of my passion and applied to film schools.

I am human and get insecure because I am a middle class man and I need to feed my family and acting is the only job I know.

There’s no set rule, but when you look at the script, you start thinking about this person and how to create this human being on screen. You dig deeper into a script.

In theatre there is a certain discipline that you have to follow, and you have to be experienced to be performing in front of a live audience. It is satisfying to me.

Creativity should be balanced with commercial interests.

There are millions of people in the world, I have only played a few of them.

As an actor, I am not comfortable with an artificial beard.

Every actor must go through the process of learning and not just be in a hurry to become famous. They should learn to live in small amounts and not to try and copy others.

As far as I am concerned the best thing that any person can have, and which I think my son has, is commitment to work and also the attitude towards it.

There have been actors who have been extremely successful by doing just about everything that came their way. But I do what I like doing and give it a certain time.

I have been rather selective, doing not more than two or thee films a year, so that leaves me with plenty of time to prep for my plays and theatre activities.

My job is that of an actor. As long as I get to act, get some interesting parts to play, get to be a part of interesting stories, I would certainly want to do it.

I have always taken up films that I like. And in the process if I have done films which bring out something that could do society good, I think it’s great.

Living my early years in Ludhiana, the Halwara base of the Indian Air Force was very close to our house. I would see jets cruise over my head.

When you get confidence from your director, as an actor, it is all a matter of how your director says, ‘This is how much I can get out of you.’

Different kind of cinema is being created, people are coming up with different kind of scripts, they are able to come up with scripts that work with the audiences and also scripts which will have something to say to the audience, which is a heart-warming thing.

‘Jersey’ is a very strong story and is driven by emotions.

If you want a good play and a show, you need time to prep for it. Artistes must be allowed to practice without being charged for the practice sessions. Let the auditorium charge for the tickets.