I can speak Hindi, but I can't sustain it over a whole movie.
Sarita Choudhury
I have an Indian father, and when you grow up in a house with an Indian father, culturally, that's what becomes dominant in the house. So that's the tradition we grew up with.
After a two-year stint at Cheek by Jowl theatre company in London, I put all my energies into breaking into New York's theatre scene. It took me eight years to build enough to play lead roles.
I've always wanted to do an Indian film, but I didn't want to come to India and pretend that I could play an average Bombay girl.
The conventional Indian movie industry is not for me: I cannot dance around trees or the water-fountain.
A few years ago, I got cast as a white boy in an off-Broadway play. So not only was it colour-blind, it was gender-blind as well. That would never happen in film.
I am interested in independent cinema and theatre, and they don't make news.
There is this film called 'La Femme Nikita.' I want to play something like that. This woman with a gun in her hand but with tears in her eyes. I would love to play that kind of vulnerability on screen.
See, all actors pretend. I enjoy that pretence. I don't wear heels in real life, but if it is for a character, I love to get into the traits of the person I am playing.
I believe in doing a nude scene only when I trust the director.
When you have a good director, it's just wonderful.
The first time I put on the hijab, it felt weird, like I was wearing a scuba-diving suit kind of thing.
People are always asking me if the industry is changing, and my answer is always that it is changing only as much as we are. Many South Asian actors complain about being pigeonholed into playing terrorists and cab drivers, but it's time that we stop talking about it. The industry will always say 'No' till we have enough to convince them.
I wanted to move between film and theater - I never felt like I fit into TV. And I'm very anti-TV, like, 'I'm never going to do TV,' but also, TV didn't want me either, so it was kind of perfect. And then, of course, cable happened, and suddenly it was like, 'Oh, I could do that kind of stuff.'
It was strange wearing the scarf and the hijab until I got used to it.
My parents are really open-minded, but with their own daughter, it's not the same thing.
People have this impression that once you move to America, that becomes your interest. But I never moved to Los Angeles; I stayed in New York because I do theatre, so my aim is not just Hollywood.
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.
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.
I go about doing my work passionately.
My early acting was ingenue stuff.
In England, entertainment by and for Indians is huge.
I live in New York, so I don't get that many Indian scripts.
I love Bollywood films, but I have been trained in independent cinema.
Theatre reminds me of Bollywood.
I have always loved doing accents. I have lived with my parents in a number of countries, including Italy and Jamaica.
Unless you enjoy life passionately, you cannot be a good artiste. Practise what you like, be it sports or dancing.
No matter how much I read the news, I feel slightly ignorant all the time.
When you do TV, people will say to you right on the street how they're feeling, with no reservations.
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.
I know I create major reactions in people.
For 'For Real,' where I play a singer who has to give up her passion for her husband and family, I practised singing for hours, in bathroom, in subways, though I am tone deaf.
Having grown up in different countries - Jamaica, Italy, U.K. - I catch the accents quite easily. In the U.S., they don't know where I am from!
I am trained in theatre, and so I take time to study and get into the skin of a character.
If you ever watch me at theatre rehearsals, you will know what a bad actress I am. I am bad... bad... bad... and then, by opening night, it all just falls into place.
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.
I would do Bollywood, but I don't know if I could do that - the dance, the singing, the kind of flirting with your eyes, the outfits.
I was raised around the world.
Anything, really - I'm as comfortable playing an Indian as playing a black woman or a South American.
I loved my role in 'Learning to Drive.' It was so different.
Theatre is highly satisfying in terms of words. You get to speak in monologues; words drive the action.
I love theatre because of the audience. It feels risky. But I love film because it travels to the whole world. To an audience I don't see.
Playing Frida was hard and wonderful. I found such a force in her, bigger than me. I tried to make it just a woman who had to do what she did. A woman who lived, ate, and laughed. I tried to avoid the 'icon' of Frida Khalo.
Some people are very ambitious and plan their whole careers, but I am not that kind of a person.
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.
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.
For me, what is important is to bring the inner life of these characters - their strengths, contradictions, anguish and triumph - alive.
If I am playing a historical character, I try to watch the person in newsreels and read about them, but I will not imitate them.
I was very shy about acting. I thought you had to be confident. I was confident with my friends, but I would never think of acting in front of anyone else.
