I'll never forget where I'm from. It's essential to remain humble and evolving.
Freida Pinto
I'm a human being before anything else.
Here's another secret - I have really big feet. I'm a size ten, so every opportunity I get I buy myself shoes.
I went to an all-girls' Christian convent school run by nuns. It was fun, but when I was 15, I said, 'Mum, that's it - I need to go where there are some boys.'
Having grown up in Bombay, from the day you're born, you have absolute freedom to choose who you want to be.
I actually didn't mind school, and I enjoyed university and college.
I did not particularly enjoy modeling. I felt I was only utilizing 10 or 20 percent of my abilities. In India, it's just another job.
I wouldn't want to do a Bollywood film per se, but I would like to do an Indian-language film. For some reason I think Bollywood has become synonymous with commercial cinema, which is song and dance and everything that is larger than life, and I am interested in the reality.
All people - African, European, American - worry about being different. But I've learned that the traits we'd rush to get rid of are the very ones that others desire. People always covet what they don't have. That's why we should look at ourselves every now and then and say, 'I'm proud of myself. I like the way I'm made.'
I am first and foremost an actress of Indian origin.
I keep saying I'm not at all famous in my own country, because people do not think I have done anything for India.
There's one disturbing notion throughout India that light skin is more attractive than dark.
I always imagined that I would learn something each time that I would take to a new project, then I realized that each new project poses a completely different challenge.
As the world's getting filled with temptations, we're getting a bit frivolous and a bit fickle.
I think even the most beautiful person looks stupid on Skype.
I definitely need to date someone who is calm.
I find it very interesting these days that films are bringing in so many people of different ethnicities, and I'm proud to be a part of that cultural shift.
I absolutely love London; it is one of my favourite cities in the world.
I feel being an actress is probably not half as difficult as being a mother, and I do not know when I will be ready for that kind of a decision.
I don't think Bollywood is only mindless cinema, but a lot of films they churn out are not films that I completely enjoy watching.
I'd like to jump out of a plane. I have a fear of heights I'd like to face.
I've never told anyone this before, but I'm an obsessive-compulsive. I go back to my hotel room every evening and put the coat hangers back in order and open my bag and rearrange it. It takes a lot of my time, but if I don't do it I can't sleep.
I guess confidence is the only thing that I take from project to project, but I'm always open to learning everybody's style - the director, the actor I'm working with.
I tell you why I like Chanel so much: when I started off, no one wanted to give me clothes to wear. Absolutely no one! All the labels said, 'Who is she?' But Chanel believed in me from the very beginning.
I've learned to develop a thick skin, but you're bound to be affected when you read something bad about yourself in the paper and it's rubbed in your face over and over.
When a doctor is performing an operation, his mind cannot be somewhere else. And it's the same with actors. You have to commit yourself mind, body and soul to a project in order to do justice to it.
I'm glad I'm a strong person.
I feel like the history between Israel and Palestine has a lot in common with the history between India and Pakistan.
Anybody, anywhere in the world, all they want is to be free, to choose what they want to do without having someone tell them how to do it.
When you doubt one thing about yourself, you start thinking there's also something wrong with your hair, your body, your clothes, your accent.
In L.A. you hear all these stories of people being filmed in their own homes through their windows. I think that is so scary.
I think it's important to be extremely proud of one's origins, especially when you are a foreign actress with ethnic features.
I love going into a country and just blending.
A lot of the younger Indian generation are either IT geniuses or doctors - the number of doctors I've seen in L.A. who are Indian is just crazy. So it is a very common thing. Or an accountant! That again is a very, very big thing.
If a cream can give you confidence then you really have to check your whole confidence department in the first place.
I feel like this whole idea of wanting something that you don't really have is also very American in a way.
Everything big-budget or stereotypical I was offered after 'Slumdog Millionaire' was a huge no-no.
Of course I'm going to marry, but I don't know when.
In terms of romantic films, all-time romantic films, I really like 'Gone With the Wind.' And I realize I sound so cliched saying that, but there's something so absolutely romantic about it.
I like working on big budget films.
One of my favorite actors is Javier Bardem, he always challenges his previous roles, and basically does the unexpected.
Indian celebrities have the media and fans permanently outside their homes, and that would make me really uncomfortable.
