It is hard directing. The hours are terrible and you have to sort of suspend your life when you're in production. So, being a mother is very hard. I can absolutely see why there are so few women directing, because it's physically a very demanding thing to do. Fathers can only do it because they have wives at home doing all the other stuff. I can only do it because I have a husband that helps with the kids at home
After 'Bhaji On The Beach', I didn't make a movie for six years. I couldn't get a movie off the ground for love nor money. It was a very tough time and I almost gave up. If I had been an Oxbridge bloke after 'Bhaji', my career would have been very different
Well, I think there was a time when I first started that there was such a thing called 'a woman's film' and there were certain scripts that women would make. But I think that's changed a lot now. I think that if a woman director walks into a room with a script, it doesn't really matter what the subject matter is, or the genre is, so long as the financiers feel that the woman has the skills to make the film.
There's so many people telling you what you should look like, what you shouldn't look like, what clothes you should be wearing, whether you're too fat or too thin, you're hair should be this shape... you're bombarded. So, I like films that show girls going through that quagmire and coming out the other side really confident in themselves and strong in themselves.
It doesn't matter how complex your plot or your characters are; you have to be able to express the big idea of a film in a sentence or two.
When you have a baby you start thinking of death cuz' you see the opposite of life. I've calmed down now but for the first or two years, I kept thinking: "Oh my God, if I die what's going to happen to the child?" And you realise how vulnerable they are, but how critical your own life is because they're so dependent on you. You do feel your own mortality. I kept saying to myself: "OK, when they're 18, I'll be 'x'; so if they get married at 30, I'll be'x'will I get to see grandchildren?" So, since they've been born I've been thinking about death the whole time.
The reason I do what I do is that I find that Asian community gives me an endless source of humour. When I entered the filmmaking business, my whole purpose was to promote and make us visible because we were very much on the margins. So, I wanted to make us mainstream. My work has helped to mainstream-ise the Asian community.
I'm a good Indian girl, I still don't do sex scenes in my movies because my mum would kill me!
If a good actor wants a role, they'll do whatever it takes to get the part. Directors are the same. We do 'meetings', not auditions: that tells you a whole lot more about an actor, too.
It is hard directing and being a mother. The hours are terrible and you have to sort of suspend your life when you're in production. I can absolutely see why there are so few women directing, because it's physically a very demanding thing to do. Fathers can only do it because they have wives at home doing all the other stuff. I can only do it because I have a husband that helps with the kids at home.
There was a time when I first started that there was such a thing called 'a woman's film' and there were certain scripts that women would make. But I think that's changed a lot now. I think that if a woman director walks into a room with a script, it doesn't really matter what the subject matter is, or the genre is, so long as the financers feel that the woman has the skills to make the film.
