Quotes from 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.

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.

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.

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.

As far as the theatrical experience is concerned, I will be highly disappointed if that goes away. I have grown up watching films in theatres so that community experience should never go.

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.

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.

What a good actor brings to a script is something, sometimes, even directors can't imagine. The director should always have the last say though.

I am thrilled and very grateful that 'Gully Boy' has been picked as India's official entry for the Oscars.

Don't try to be anyone else because that's been done before. Find yourself and what makes you tick.

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'.

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

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

I write my films with Reema Kagti, and I think all the characters that I have written, somewhere or the other, reflect my thoughts, ideology and morality.

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.

There was no pressure at home regarding grades. We were expected to study and pass but luckily our parents gave us a broader education.

See I think we are nervous about every movie before it's release, irrespective of who has directed the movie.

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

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

But disco is the remedy for ghosts.

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

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

I have learnt not to ignore instincts. While making a film, when your gut feels that you are going wrong, please take that seriously.

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