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" I've been wanting for a long time to create a show which allowed me to show the British Asian community in a truly three-dimensional way, exploring the relationships between generations and what it means to be British and Asian as values become fluid. "

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" Once I started writing the screenplay of 'Bride & Prejudice,' I was convinced Jane Austen was a Punjabi in her previous birth. "

Gurinder Chadha

Writing

Birth

Bride

" 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!' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

Everyone

Again

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Australians have a fantastic sense of humour and incredible taste. I was there for 'Bend It Like Beckham,' and I had a great time. Aussies loved it, and I think 'Bride & Prejudice' is going to do well, too, because it's all about having a good time. "

" Indian films never show cows. When you go to India, the most noticeable thing is the cows. Everywhere you look, there's cows walking around! Just by introducing the idea of animals - livestock walking around - suddenly makes it more real. "

" The more I make films, the more I feel less inclined to talk about them and just let people watch them. I feel that the pictures are telling the story, and I can't really add anything except just talking about the technicalities of what happened on the day. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

Better

You Can Do It

" When you're told that as a filmmaker of colour, the stories you want to tell aren't commercial enough, then you start thinking, 'I'm going to tell them anyway.' "

" 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. "

" One of the things I want to do with 'Desi Rascals' is go a bit deeper into the characters and their family lives and have a bit more heart and a bit more inter-generational story-telling, so it's not all about young people. "

" If I'm in a gathering of filmmakers, I'm first and foremost a British Indian; if I'm in a gathering of British Indians, I'm a woman director. There are so many sides to who I am that I change all the time. "

" Britain has nurtured me and made me able to make movies that have travelled round the world. "

" 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. "

" My pregnancy was great, but the last three weeks were manic because my blood pressure was going up and up. "

Gurinder Chadha

Great

Blood

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" '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

Power

" I use humour a lot because humour is a great equaliser. Everyone laughs at the same things if you set them up properly, and that makes everybody equal. At the end of the day, I see my job as being there to entertain as well as inform and provoke. "

" I really thought I couldn't be a mum. We had tried several times with IVF,, and it hadn't worked and we'd given up in a way. We both thought, 'You know what, that's that. It's not going to happen - let's move on.' "

" For British cinema to survive, you really need a British film culture, and it's got to start down there, with young kids watching films in the cinema - so they can be transported to a different world. "

" I went to L.A., and I was on two different studio movies at Fox and Sony, but they were never made in the end. When the second one wasn't happening, I ended up doing an episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' for the BBC, and went on a roots trip from England to Kenya, India, and pre-partition India in Pakistan, where my family originally came from. "

" The only time I used to feel like an outsider was when I first went to India. "

Gurinder Chadha

First

India

" My films do have a big following among young girls, and I want to instill confidence in them, a sense of self-appreciation - to make them feel they can be spirited and say what they feel. "