Sarita Choudhury

“To do a movie with someone like Tom Hanks that when you tell your dad, your dad knows who Tom Hanks is - it feels like you're finally giving back to your parents. It's like you've actually done something that they can recognize, and there's something in me that makes them super proud.”

“If a filmmaker is making a movie about a nice Midwestern family or a story that needs a very white character or a black or a Chinese, then I don't expect to go up for it. But I know, especially in places like New York, there's no excuse not to see various colors.”

“My early acting was ingenue stuff.”

“I go about doing my work passionately.”

“I think I have a certain awkwardness, and I don't know how that works on screen.”

“The conventional Indian movie industry is not for me: I cannot dance around trees or the water-fountain.”

“I live in New York, so I don't get that many Indian scripts.”

“Left to myself, I would only play an Indian. But the reality was that there were hardly any Indian characters I could play in the films made in England and Hollywood. So I had to learn how to disappear into a variety of characters.”

“When you do TV, people will say to you right on the street how they're feeling, with no reservations.”

“Unless you enjoy life passionately, you cannot be a good artiste. Practise what you like, be it sports or dancing.”

“I loved my role in 'Learning to Drive.' It was so different.”

“For me, what is important is to bring the inner life of these characters - their strengths, contradictions, anguish and triumph - alive.”

“In England, entertainment by and for Indians is huge.”

“Some people are very ambitious and plan their whole careers, but I am not that kind of a person.”

“I don't think of the characters as nationalities. I do not live in India. Playing people from different backgrounds, including Indians, comes easily to me.”

“I live in New York. I go to dance class; I do theatre. When things are sent to me, if I like them, I push to do them. And I would absolutely love to do anything that's part of my dad's homeland.”

“When you have a good director, it's just wonderful.”

“In America, they often don't know where I am from. The important point is the audience should not be able see through it. It should be so natural that your close friends may even think that you are not a great actor.”

“I want my life to match my work now. I don't want to work and then travel. I want to be at one place.”

“My parents live in Kolkata, so I come every year.”