Mani Ratnam

“Rahman is very very director friendly. He is ever ready to go whichever the director wants, the story wants, depending on the kind of movie or the music you want, and within that he finds his niche. It is a constantly complementary process. At the end of the day he is not pleasing you, he has to please himself.”

“Sometimes casting falls in place easily and sometimes it takes a while. Fifty per cent of my job is done when I get the right actors.”

“Sometimes, I think filmmakers grab too much from real life.”

“Any good film you see gives you enough motivation and adrenaline rush to produce good content, while a bad film can get you so angry that you produce even better content.”

“If you ask a filmmaker to analyse his own film, it would take three or four years to do that, honestly. Because when you make a film, you have to be convinced about it. You are married to that film for a year.”

“I wish I had gone to a film school.”

“As the soul of the film it has to work for you otherwise you don't take it up at all. It takes two years of your life, you better be interested in it. When you know it's something you can do well, that's when you take it up.”

“Each success gives me the adrenaline to move to another film.”

“Sometimes in a large family, you get taken to a movie and there just isn't enough space or not enough tickets and you get left out. Those are the movies you remember because you never got to see them!”

“When it comes to casting for movies, it is a priority that you cast right. The guiding principle must be what is right for the movie, that is the basis you cast someone, not because so-and-so is a friend.”

“I watch films, so I know what it is to be there in a theatre as the audience. So I always want to communicate with them when I make films, but that is not the only thing. I also want to say something which I feel deeply, and which I feel I can connect with the rest of the audience.”

“When I did my first film, I didn't have formal training; I didn't work under any director. I really didn't know how to make a film.”

“Film fests are an opportunity to see different kinds of films that you usually don't get to watch. When I'm part of a jury, then I get to judge films, but otherwise I attend festivals to watch two or three films a day and network with a gathering of cinema lovers from all over.”

“I work with actors who fit the bill. I have worked with Abhishek in 'Yuva,' 'Guru' and 'Raavan' because he was the perfect choice.”

“At the end of the day, all I want is that my films should do well.”

“Censorship should never go. But we can always give a little more space to the director.”

“I have only one simple ambition when I make a film. That it should be the best I have made so far. With 'Kadal' it was no different.”

“You can't say there is only one way of doing things, the police way of ensuring law and order.”

“If you look at any film fest, the setting gives it colour. Be it Goa, Cannes or even Berlin in the winter, the setting makes these festivals special and gives it a definition.”

“Format is just the language. Content is the only thing that is important. Form is like handwriting. Whether you write in a scribble or clean handwriting or type it, the content remains the same. You want to write in clean hand, in a kind of a clear format only because it is aesthetically pleasing. I can scribble, that's also fine.”