The biggest piece is my family... From watching films like The Godfather on our dining room wall, to having a great relationship with my sibling. Or going on weekend trips with our cousins to the beach and eating all day... it's been a crazy childhood; a 'bohemian one'.

Zoya Akhtar

I had a press conference and I fell down on stage! Because I was in a skirt, dude. And there was this genius on stage and someone told me please sit and I went to sit and he pulled the chair off from under me! I did my whole thing, after that, I was really upset.

Zoya Akhtar

Age Whole Who

I'm obsessed with people, I'm obsessed with human behavior. I just watch people.

Zoya Akhtar

Wit Watch Us

But disco is the remedy for ghosts.

Zoya Akhtar

T Remedy Me

I draw cinematic and photography and art references from everywhere. That's part of my job. So yes, you watch films, you see artists for palettes, photographers for mood.

Zoya Akhtar

Art You Yes

As a filmmaker when you show your film to anybody, you want it to be liked. You want the reviews to be positive. After watching your film, you want people to feel good.

Zoya Akhtar

Positive Good Your

As cinema is a reflection of the world around us, with more women coming into the mainstream business, more women narratives will grab the limelight.

Zoya Akhtar

Women Men Business

Pieces of my life, no matter how scattered, are being stitched together and reflect in my work.

Zoya Akhtar

Work Life Together

I have a phobia. I have a serious phobia of rodents. I don't even like white mice, hamsters.

Zoya Akhtar

White Us T

You realize you have to become aware of your inner monologue. The things you say to yourself. This raised my consciousness so it was vital to my growth, I would say.

Zoya Akhtar

War Yourself Yours

When you colonise someone's dream, that's the worst thing you can do.

Zoya Akhtar

You Worst Thing Worst

But if you can empathise with a character and if you can emotionally resonate with that character and understand their emotional journey, I think you are home.

Zoya Akhtar

Home You Wit

As film makers or any artiste that put work out there, what you are doing on your level is that you are putting consciousness out into the world.

Zoya Akhtar

Work Art Your

It is nice to be out there, amongst contemporaries on a global scale. You meet different people, see different things, meet different producers, eventually grow to collaborate in different ways. The world is getting smaller. It's nice not to be insular.

Zoya Akhtar

You World Ways

I had the best shooting experience in Dharavi. People are so cooperative and busy with their work that they don't have time to be star struck.

Zoya Akhtar

Work Time Experience

I only drink wine, beer, and champagne. I've never had hard liquor, I've never had a whiskey drink in my life. I just don't like it.

Zoya Akhtar

Life Wine Win

The class system in India is very hard, and it is very unfair.

Zoya Akhtar

Very Unfair UN

We need to develop artists who are not just scoring films. I'm hoping 'Gully Boy' can help with that.

Zoya Akhtar

Art Wit Who

I have to have a story I really want to tell, and then it makes sense to put things out there. So if you see, 2018 was again crazy for me. I did 'Lust Stories', 'Made in Heaven' and 'Gully Boy'.

Zoya Akhtar

You Want Us

The biggest piece is my family... From watching films like The Godfather on our dining room wall, to having a great relationship with my sibling. Or going on weekend trips with our cousins to the beach and eating all day... it's been a crazy childhood; a 'bohemian one'.

Zoya Akhtar

Relationship Great God

It is a part of us, film-makers and audiences; what we can't say with dialogues, we say with a song. We tell stories through songs, look at our folk cultures.

Zoya Akhtar

Art Wit Us

Freedom is a sentiment associated with the youth. It is rebellion. It is what you feel at that age, and it is very important.

Zoya Akhtar

I don't really know a normal family. In fact, I don't know a perfect person. So, how can a family be perfect and frankly if there are any, they will be very boring like I won't want them over for dinner.

Zoya Akhtar

The whole class system has oppressed so many people and given them such lack of opportunity. They are fed such strong narratives that this is where you belong and this is where you are.

Zoya Akhtar

We were allowed to make mistakes. I mean that is a real privilege, to be able to go your own way, find your voice, just have a support system that allows you to do all that.

Zoya Akhtar

When you're scoring music for a film, it has to be interwoven with the narrative, it has to reflect the mood, the ethos.

Zoya Akhtar

I like hip-hop personally. It is a genre I am very attached to and have been listening to all my life. But I have always engaged with foreign artistes, never with mainstream Indian hip-hop rap space.

Zoya Akhtar

I feel like all my films have my politics. As a film-maker, whatever story you're telling, your value system comes out.

Zoya Akhtar

So at 19, I faced my first blank page as a professional writer.

Zoya Akhtar

Even though 'Luck By Chance' is set in the film industry, the lead characters are people you know and see, but they are not your friends.

Zoya Akhtar

I think actors get paid a lot and technicians don't get paid enough and I think that it should change because a good film, which is like a complete package, needs every single member of that team. I think we need to pay them more.

Zoya Akhtar

I have friends and experience from everywhere; I've worked in all kinds of locations and situations and in all kinds of job profiles, so there's a varied experience that comes handy. And there's something nice when you do something you've to push yourself to do it.

Zoya Akhtar

When it comes to writing characters, whether men or women, I think a good writer writes good characters. I know many men who, for years, have written strong, progressive women characters.

Zoya Akhtar

I come from a space where I wouldn't say all, but most of the films have really shortchanged women. I don't mean just the actresses, even just depicting us in that culture.

Zoya Akhtar

Films like 'Scarface', 'The Godfather', 'Goodfellas' and 'Casino' are something I can watch again and again and from anywhere. I love them so I have to make one.

Zoya Akhtar

I want to make a period film, I want to make a film set in another country. I want to make a foreign film. I want to make everything eventually. I am a storyteller. I have many stories to tell.

Zoya Akhtar

Because you don't have opportunity to study, you don't have opportunity to further yourself. And you kind of tend to believe your lot that this is what you have been given. I think on some level we have colonised people, our own people.

Zoya Akhtar

My biggest challenge was when I had my first panic attack at 27. It's not something you can ignore, you can't sit around and get sucked into a rabbit hole.

Zoya Akhtar

I'm a writer, so I like nuances.

Zoya Akhtar

I feel blessed and lucky with my family, not because of the privilege, of course, I'm grateful for that as well that we never wanted anything.

Zoya Akhtar

Who will you replace Dibakar Banerjee with? There isn't another one.

Zoya Akhtar

Every time you make a film you want to put something out there and that's important to me.

Zoya Akhtar

I mean tomorrow if I want to make a film about a queen that lived in the 15th century, I can't be like I can't make it. I should be able to make it.

Zoya Akhtar

In 'Gully Boy', of course, Ranveer Singh's performance has largely decided what the songs will look and feel like.

Zoya Akhtar

I think there is nothing more important in forming a human being than your family. It is how you have been brought up and been taken care of that eventually is how you will deal with and treat the world.

Zoya Akhtar

I love music, but can't hold a note in a bucket. I can't sing, can't play an instrument.

Zoya Akhtar

I definitely want a partner and would like to spend the rest of my life with somebody, but I don't care if am married or not.

Zoya Akhtar

I was an executive producer. I've done a lot of jobs and I think each one helps you get closer to what you want as a director. It also helps you - when you work with different filmmakers - to absorb, to adapt, to know what to watch out for, to know pitfalls.

Zoya Akhtar

I've grown up in the film industry and I've been watching them, analyzing them, laughing at them, totally understanding them and getting their point of view, and, at times, taking up for them. So I'm part of it and it's part of me.

Zoya Akhtar

To make a good film is an art. Gender is irrelevant when it comes to craft of filmmaking.

Zoya Akhtar

At 19, while studying at St Xavier's College and majoring in literature and sociology, I got my first job as a copywriter. It was at a company called the Script Shop.

Zoya Akhtar