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Scorsese and De Niro taught me to bring out the natural side of myself. And they taught me to think of myself as the average guy. Sometimes the average guy belongs in a role more than your matinee idol-type of person. We have to have people we can relate to.

I have always let the lack of Indian actors in the industry drive me, not hold me back. I remember an agent in L.A. telling me a few years ago that an Indian actor wouldn't ever make it in Hollywood, but my ethnicity has helped me.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

The first movie I saw where it convinced me I could be an actor was 'Mean Streets,' so whenever I see Robert De Niro and he says, 'Hi, Denis,' it's still a really big deal.

You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style.

We were five kids at home, and my mother and grandmother ensured that we all had a very grounded upbringing in Madras. Even in school, I never used to tell anyone that my dad was an actor.

If you ever meet an actor who's the child of actors, they'll never tell you that they wanted to be a star. But what I did realise early on was that I just wanted to be in that tribe.

If I didn't work in television or film, if I didn't have the right look, I never took it personally. Because there was always the theatre. I'm not a nihilist, I'm an optimist. And that has served me well in this profession.

In some cases, the casting directors have casted blindly and have not looked into my ethnic background.