Om Puri quotes:

The fact is I like Mumbai less and less. My son says, 'Baba, let's go for a drive', and I tell him, 'Where's the fun of a drive in this place?' You get caught in a million traffic jams, and you spend time cooped in your car with all that mad cacophony around you.

Fat noses have no place in the Hindi film industry. But it is not so in the West - otherwise, Anthony Quinn would have never been an actor.

I had hoped when my life was chronicled, it would be an inspirational story.

What Bollywood lacks is scripts. A lot of the films are copies of western films.

Parallel cinema has not made an effort to communicate in a language the other person understands.

I was very sensitive to the environment around, and this disparity in people, seeing beggars and laborers not paid well, used to disturb me. So these emotions in these roles came very naturally to me.

I don't expect anything from anybody. When you grow old Your days are gone; it is part of life.

Meeting Helen Mirren was a fabulous experience. I had played it out in my mind, how I should greet her when we would be introduced. But the way we met was funny because I just didn't recognise her!

I feel even old people can do a nice love story, but here we don't make that kind of films. In the West, such films are being made and they make a nice romance, which is more like compassion.

I don't spend on expensive brands. I don't need foreign holidays.

I have no regrets at all. I have done quite well for myself. I didn't have a conventional face, but I have done well, and I am proud of it.

Actors are just soldiers who follow commands.

I prefer working in good cinema, wherever it is. I like subjects that have a universal appeal.

In western countries, there are roles written for older actors. Films are made on them, including love stories.

I am grateful to theatre for making me what I am today. But it's not like theatre is my first love. I am equally attached to cinema, which is, actually, a child of theatre, since it borrows heavily from it.

It is my first preference to do films with social significance. Art cinema has given me credibility and status as an actor, but commercial cinema has given me a comfortable living.

I have been in the film industry for 35 years, and everyone, including the spot-boys, will vouch for my character.

Our stars are quite notorious. I mean, they don't show up on time. This is, you know, something which is very, very annoying.

I was very shy and very reserved as a child, very, very introvert.

We have filmmakers who make films with some kind of responsibility and take cinema seriously like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Prakash Jha. But now these people also take stars Without stars they cannot work.

As a young man, I was very introverted and quiet, but with a lot of intensity and feelings.

In theatre, you've got to make the connect with your audience in the first three minutes. If you haven't, you know you've almost lost them.