Mira Nair Quotes (18 Quotes)

I guess that would be Indian, in a way. We are used to no privacy. We are used to a lot of people in a room, sleeping on mattresses.

The Austen novels had young ladies just sitting waiting to be proposed to, for God's sake. Becky had no time for that. She was born on the other side of the tracks, like most of us are, and she had to make her way.

I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.

I like to be unabashed, which is an Indian trait, both emotionally and visually. It's important to have a circus to play with.

It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching.

I want to question what the outside is and who defines it. I often find those that are considered to be on the outside extremely inspiring.

The media do not allow us to understand the history of what led to 911. The knowledge of what we are living in now is not given to the American public.

Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.

Reese Witherspoon was the first, and ... only person that I thought who would play it, for many reasons. Number one, an actor who has to play from 17 to 35 and be convincing in both ranges. And two, we all know her extraordinary comic guile and her wit ... but she also has that irresistibility in her, that total appeal.

Truth is more peculiar than fiction. Life is really a startling place.

It's an extraordinarily funny and wonderful screenplay. It makes you laugh from the first page.

I know what it's like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it's like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis.

I grew up in a very small town which is remote even by Indian standards. I always dreamed of the world.

I wanted to add something that you've never seen about an actress before and this was my chance, and Reese's chance ... to make her a full-blown sensual woman. And to see also that emotional depth, that real range,

They say now in America that final cut doesn't mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, 'You can have final cut. I'll open your film in Arkansas.'

I always like to reveal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. And children are best at that. They teach us how to see the world in that sense. They are without artifice; they see it for what it is. I am drawn to that ruthless honesty.

People ask me this, but I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.

But if I have an obsession at all, it is with hands. I love hands and I love lips. I never cast lipless actors.