Sarita Choudhury

I love Bollywood films, but I have been trained in independent cinema.

There is this film called 'La Femme Nikita.' I want to play something like that. This woman with a gun in her hand but with tears in her eyes. I would love to play that kind of vulnerability on screen.

It's like everyone says they love my body, but then I'm supposed to lose weight.

I live in New York. I go to dance class; I do theatre. When things are sent to me, if I like them, I push to do them. And I would absolutely love to do anything that's part of my dad's homeland.

I love theatre because of the audience. It feels risky. But I love film because it travels to the whole world. To an audience I don't see.

For 'For Real,' where I play a singer who has to give up her passion for her husband and family, I practised singing for hours, in bathroom, in subways, though I am tone deaf.

See, all actors pretend. I enjoy that pretence. I don't wear heels in real life, but if it is for a character, I love to get into the traits of the person I am playing.

Unless you enjoy life passionately, you cannot be a good artiste. Practise what you like, be it sports or dancing.

Theatre is highly satisfying in terms of words. You get to speak in monologues; words drive the action.

After a two-year stint at Cheek by Jowl theatre company in London, I put all my energies into breaking into New York's theatre scene. It took me eight years to build enough to play lead roles.

I wanted to move between film and theater - I never felt like I fit into TV. And I'm very anti-TV, like, 'I'm never going to do TV,' but also, TV didn't want me either, so it was kind of perfect. And then, of course, cable happened, and suddenly it was like, 'Oh, I could do that kind of stuff.'

For me, what is important is to bring the inner life of these characters - their strengths, contradictions, anguish and triumph - alive.