Gurinder Chadha Quotes

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Gurinder Chadha

Profession : Director

Birth : January 10, 1960

Our films have the ability to tell global audiences who we are, and this is something the government should feel compelled to protect. My film, 'Bend it Like Beckham,' for example, would not have been made without the backing and support of the U.K. Film Council.

Gurinder Chadha

I saw 'Billy Elliot' again, and what I loved about it was the way it had become a social document, a reminder of what happened with the mining communities in the '80s. And I thought, 'Everyone keeps wanting me to make a sequel to 'Beckham,' but maybe a musical remake is the answer, embracing all this theatricality.'

Gurinder Chadha

Southall Broadway, in west London, has been a constant part of my life from the day I arrived in England as a baby from Kenya in 1962. My parents rented a room in one of the terraces off the Broadway, and I've seen it change from an ordinary English high street to what is now 'Little India.' with a confident Asian community.

Gurinder Chadha

If you tell me I can't do something, that's the worst thing to tell me. And that's what I tell girls, and what Beckham's about: you can do it, you can do it better, and you can do it in the way you want.

Gurinder Chadha

All my films are about kind of being seen to be one thing when you're actually something else, and the power of the female spirit to make things work your way on your terms. Which is what I do.

Gurinder Chadha

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

Gurinder Chadha

I knew from an early age that people didn't see the different sides of me. I formulated a kind of bi-cultural identity quite early, and I was always very comfortable with it, but I knew people didn't quite see that.

Gurinder Chadha

I know it sounds really weedy, but we are all children who seek approval from our parents.

Gurinder Chadha

The fact that it's hard to create an original British musical doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

Gurinder Chadha

There are very few people who are Asian who have the kind of global reach that I have, not just with Asians but with non-Asians. I've worked hard for what my name represents, my brand, not just in Britain but around the world.

Gurinder Chadha

Third-generation Indians love maintaining their cultural traditions, but they can also go down the pub, shop till they drop, do whatever anyone else does.

Gurinder Chadha

One of the best things about the award season is that when a British film succeeds at the Oscars and BAFTAs, such as 'Slumdog Millionaire' in 2009 and 'The King's Speech' this year, the British public get right behind it with an immense sense of national pride.

Gurinder Chadha

It's not simply that British films do well at the box office and generate revenue, it's that they provide a window to the world of what Britain and its culture is about.

Gurinder Chadha

I was a journalist when I made 'I'm British But...' I'd seen how important the media was in terms of defining Indians - after the riots in the '80s, I was like, 'Oh my God!'

Gurinder Chadha

I love 'I'm British But...' It's such a sweet, innocent, open-hearted film, and it has the sort of openness that I still aspire to with everything I do. It wears its heart, head, everything on its sleeve.

Gurinder Chadha

I'm absolutely delighted because I'm part of the process that has made Asians very much part of the mainstream fabric of Britain, whereas, when I first started, we were completely on the margin.

Gurinder Chadha

'Up the Junction' went on to inform my love of British social realism. It was the first film I saw of this ilk, a very stark, visceral reflection of England, an England I didn't necessarily feel a part of but that I knew was out there. You could almost smell the bread and butter and cabbage.

Gurinder Chadha

'Up the Junction' really made me understand the power of cinema to create a vivid sense of a community. When I went on to make 'Bhaji on the Beach,' it was this sense I tried to recreate.

Gurinder Chadha

I tell stories about people audiences might think they have nothing in common with, then they emotionally connect with them and find they're not different at all.

Gurinder Chadha

One of the head guys at Disney categorically said to me, 'We don't want to make children's films any more. We want to make films that are going to appeal to all quadrants.' Hence you have films like 'Shrek' and all the Pixar stuff, which is designed to suit everybody.

Gurinder Chadha