Shabana Azmi

I think men and women are different - I am not saying better or worse, just different.

When I entered the industry in the early 1970s, I was a gold medalist from the film institute, Pune. That was when graduates from the film institute were very quickly absorbed by the mainstream commercial industry.

I look back on my career with some sort of satisfaction.

In Kaifi's poetry and in his work as a social activist, every setback only strengthened his resolve to fight back with renewed vigor and strength.

'Aurat' is an iconic poem which is relevant 70 years later and informs me in the work I do with women.

Over the years, I've consciously not done films that in any way suggest that women are subservient to men.

I grew up in a family that believed that art should be used as an instrument for social change.

For a long time I didn't believe that I couldn't become a mother. But when I finally came to terms with it, then I didn't look back.

I take care to conduct myself formally in public and not be brash. That is a given for people in public life. But I'm very bohemian and informal when I'm with friends.

I am an optimist and my father was an optimist.

My father was a rare poet. He was somebody who worked in the trenches. When he wanted to speak about social justice or gender empowerment, he spoke through his poetry.

My parents always encouraged us to speak our minds and to be respectful while doing so about issues that we thought strongly about and that was unconditional.

India is a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously, and her people at any given time and place encapsulate all the contradictions that come from being a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual society.

I find it amusing that every time I was asked when I will work with Zoya or Farhan, I was quoted as saying, 'It will be easier to convince Steven Spielberg to cast me rather than my own children.' That has come true.

An actor's resource base must be life itself.

Kangana has started believing in her own myth. She says she taught feminism to the film industry, she taught it nationalism. I'm glad she spelled that out because nobody else had noticed! I think she fears the day when she will no longer be in the headlines and so has to keep making outrageous statements to stay in the news.

Hindi cinema needs to make working women and women of substance more visible.

At the age of seven, I wanted a doll with blonde hair and blue eyes like other girls in my class. But my father gave me a black doll and said 'black is beautiful.' Telling this to a seven-year-old was quite peculiar, but these were the values we inherited from him.

Why cannot a woman be shown working out of choice, the way men do? Can't a woman work because she enjoys it and is capable of doing it? Why should they be shown leaving home for employment as a sacrifice for the family?

I've no problem with dying my hair for a role. But in real life, forget it!